zen and the art of cartography
DESCRIPTION
Presentation by Kenneth Field at International Cartographic Conference, Dresden 2013 In answer to the question ‘what do you do’? cartographers have gone from nervously explaining that yes, there are people who make maps to reluctantly admitting “yes, it’s like Google Maps”. Cartography is now cool…but it’s not cartographers that are making it cool. Instead, cartographers continue to assert ‘principles’ and ‘traditions’ as core to effective map-making but the message is getting lost. It’s time to re-focus and re-imagine. One of the things that has bothered us over the last few years is the role of design in map-making. We see very little of what we would call good design and very few people who either have the ability or enthusiasm to value design as a key component in the map-making process. We believe this is to the detriment of the quality and usefulness of maps and this is one of the reasons that the International Cartographic Association supported the creation of a new Commission on Map Design precisely to make design explicit. In this paper we want to think a little about how we might re-imagine design and the art of (or in) cartography in a way that might be more accessible to the growing world of map-makers. We want to think a little about the juxtaposition of the art and science of cartography and the white elephant in the room…technology. Cartography is about purposeful design, combining aesthetics and visuals with an understanding of data and how people behave when viewing a map. Instead of trying to assert the importance of art as a component of cartography to map-makers unwilling to listen, maybe there is value in seeing cartography as an art in itself. Using examples of ‘great maps’ from an original survey we assert that art is not a part of cartography that we try to marry with science and technology. Cartography is about creating something; art is in the doing and poor maps are not a function of failure to put art in cartography, they’re because the map is not treated as an artistic endeavour. The survey sought to collate a set of examplar maps that the cartographic profession could point to; that illustrated the zenith of cartographic excellence. The results provided a fascinating mix of historical and contemporary examples; some obvious and some less so but we explored the design in each and explained why they exhibit high standards of cartography. The survey also revealed that the idea that excellence in cartography can only be achieved by those with a formal training is a fallacy. The democratisation of map-making is possibly not as new as we might imagine since maps have always been made by non cartographers as the survey reveals.TRANSCRIPT
International Cartographic Conference
Dresden, Germany 2013
Kenneth Field
Damien Demaj
Zen and the art of cartography
Student says " I am very discouraged. What should I do?“
Government/NMA
GIS
Democratisedmapping
60s 70s 80s 90s 00s
Master says, "encourage others.“
If you understand, things are just as they are...
...if you don't understand, things are just as they are
Art Science
Art Science
Cartography
The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Do not speak - unless it improves on silence
In all things, success depends on previous
preparation, and without such previous
preparation there is sure to be failure
Water which is too pure has no fish
Eliminate what does not matter to make more
room for what does
No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place
See with your eyes, hear with your ears. Nothing is hidden.
No flower ever sees the seed.
International Cartographic Conference
Dresden, Germany 2013
Thankyou@kennethfield @damiendemaj
cartonerd.com