architectural arteries · 2009-09-29 19:43
Typography Map by James Bridle
After seeing James’ quick attempts at making maps with Cloudmade, I had a play, and made some maps of the UK, pulling out everything apart from the roads and rail. Sure, it’s a well-worn metaphor, but there’s something in the infrastructure making the landscape.
It’s a pity there’s not more control in Cloudmade – this was stretching the limits of what is possible (I totally appreciate that it’s meant to make useable maps quickly, rather than stretching the limits of cartography) – even making a map of Europe in a similar way would require an exponential amount of work. Time to break out Mapnik, and Tile Drawer, then… on the other hand, it’s pretty amazing that in an hour or so I could create a map of the UK how I wanted – Openstreetmap is really changing things for cartography.
And if you spot any errors on the maps – and I’m sure some of the railways don’t look as connected up as they are – fix it!
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I’d like to see rivers as well, or maybe that should be canals in the infrastructure vein.