slate.comPosted Jan 2, 2012, 6:26 PM UTC
Buy it here http://www.omnimap.com/catalog/cats/usawallmaps.htm#p7
His site is down right now, but that is the best alternate I could find.
Pretty good deal for a beautiful map.
Yep. I am no expert, but I would think that the extensive relief shading of topography took a very long time.
I think what took the longest would be laying out all the place labels by hand, and doing the research about all the places and information to include.
The relief shading is probably generated from computer data.
I am in the process of buying the Imus map and find that the Afghanistan travel map is the 3rd best seller.
Does it say the size of the printed map? I don't see it.
It’s about 4 feet by 3 feet.
Very cool, but I wish the article talked about this being a good map without implying that we are worse off for having maps at our finger tips that you can zoom in and out.
Also, Google Maps are but one of the options that are easily accessible. I like map.live.com and map.yahoo.com, too. The Microsoft offering in fact has some similar features as the Imus map even if its design may largely be automated.
Besides, if you need to zoom in on a wall map you can just tiptoe closer to the wall.
Yeah, that seems a bit silly. Online maps are extremely powerful tools, only someone blinded by nostalgia would shun the ability to define scale dynamically. I do really appreciate the discussion of design however. It is interesting that this isn't an article heralding the benefits of pure handcraft, but rather digital handcraft verses semi-automated digital design. The argument, which is a good one, being that embedded intelligence and automation don't handle design details and decisions as well as a human.
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Biggest image of the map I could find: https://www.mapcenter.com/addon_pics/imus_usa_01.jpg
I know I'm late, but here's a much better one. It's a beautiful map.
Ah, thanks. That is much clearer.
Amazing map.
David Imus worked alone on his map seven days a week for two full years. Nearly 6,000 hours in total.
How does one make up for his time/fund this size of an endeavor?
For one thing, that zooming capability means the makers of a single digital map are forced to design dozens of differently scaled versions.
Wouldn't it be a coded program that adjusts the scaling because of user interaction vs dozens of unique maps?
Wouldn't it be a coded program that adjusts the scaling
Yeah I think that is worded badly or badly understood.
A zoomable digital map means you don't need to design dozens of differently scaled versions. Printed maps you do.
Nonetheless, interesting article on map design. The scaling algorithms would not be able to lay out the place labels in the same way as somebody doing the design by hand.
Wouldn't it be a coded program that adjusts the scaling because of user interaction vs dozens of unique maps?
It's possible to render and tweak the individual maps. Consider that google maps, for one, is actually just a series of tiled static renders - it's possible to have a human go over the individual zoom levels and tweak aspects of either the map or the algorithm based on how things display.
Respect to the guy! Really astounding feat.
Reading that article gave me a serious cartographical boner.
So, in other words, your compass rose?
Is that like the lame joke in cartography circles that everyone has heard a million times or are you just super clever? because that was masterful.
As I'm not akin to many cartography circles, I suppose it'd be the latter, although I'm a bit too modest to admit it. But do go on… :D
At last year's mapmaker conference, Imus presented a number of the printed maps to Madison (Wisc.) schools. I don't want to take anything away from the man, but I don't know that any of us other cartographers thought it was a particularly innovative or groundbreaking work.
and still it won Best of Show?
From a different group. I'm not sure how many entries the CAGIS awards program has these days.
oh yeah, ok, it got confused in my mind :)
I can't believe they would take such a carefully-constructed map, and then destroy it in their images with JPEG compression. It turns his map into a blurry mess.
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I'm digging this map and may just have to pick it up. I can appreciate the work that went into it.
At first I thought he beat out Neo Geo, and I was really confused as to how SNK got in to the map-making business.
Though I'm no designer, I am a frequent traveler and a geologist, and appreciate so much the level of geographic detail that seems to have gone into this map. Being from Muskegon, MI, I'm glad this article pointed out NatGeo's major faux pas of not including the ferry line from Muskegon to Milwaukee, especially considering it makes three round trips across Lake Michigan each day of its operating season (only one half hour is used for docking, unloading, and reloading)!
a good step forward for anti-corporatism
Kind of relevant to this submission:
Yup... give this anonymous internet account all the glory an old man toiling away to win an obscure award no one knows about can muster! I am riding this map to self actualization! This years old reddit accounts gonna get, like, maybe 100 karma points. Let's go Beaver State! WOOT!
Are you fucking serious?
Never have I felt more nerdy than I did while reading this article. Clicking on the link to the 2nd page was the benchmark moment when I realized just what a nerd I am.
If I never thought that at all while reading it through, indeed just thought it was an interesting article (if a little clichéd in its appeal to the "simple, ancient joy of paper"), then am I more or less of a nerd than you?