A very good friend had a 1960-or-so Russian-made map of the Soviet Union on his wall once. It use of soft colors to show the different federal regions was beautiful. When Catholicgauze came over I did not use it so much as to learn about the Soviet Union but instead just unwind and lose myself in the art of it. I also have a map on my wall that I use for artistic purposes rather than georeference; however, it is still cool to read a pre-World War II map and just see how much has changed! The Dutch during their golden age began collecting and hanging maps for artistic reasons. The reason behind this all is that a truly good map will have an artistic cartographic style in it that will make it pleasant to look at.
The blog Apartment Theory has a plethora of posts on using maps as art for your home here, here, here, here, here, and here. These posts go beyond the "hang pretty map on wall and enjoy" but instead utlize maps in a variety of creative ways. (I already have the map shower curtain!)
What ways do use utilize maps? Are there any map no-nos with you (I can't stand putting pins into maps to show where one has been)?
1 comment:
I've got a very cool 1943 National Geographic map of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres framed and hanging up in my house.
One thing that I've noticed is people seem to be drawn to maps. People tend to congregate around them, talk about them, point to places on the map.
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