Most of the maps I design for books are of real places and are based on geospatial data. But once in a while a different type of project crosses my path. M.K. MacLean is the author of a fantasy novel trilogy and commissioned custom maps of her world to illustrate her novel. Read about how we designed these maps.
Many of the maps I create are for historical fiction books. I work with a lot of authors, some are first-time authors and some, like Amy Mantravadi, have written several books. Amy wrote a historical fiction series about her ancestor who lived in 12th-century England and she wanted a map showing locations in the story.
Collin Yarbrough's book, "Paved A Way", discusses infrastructure, policy, and racism, while learning about the history of the Central Expressway in Dallas. I helped Collin create a map showing the neighbourhoods affected by the expressway construction.
Greg Madonna's memoir - The Learjet Diaries - is about his time in the 1970s as a pilot flying in South America and the Caribbean. He wanted a series of black and white maps, simple and clean with a serious tone, to illustrate his story. Read more about the development of these maps.
I worked with Jacob Taylor-Mosquera this past spring on a map to accompany his memoir, "I Met Myself in October: A Memoir of Belonging". He writes about his international adoption from Columbia and his search to find his biological family. Read more about our collaboration on a map of Cali for his book.
Last fall I worked with authors writing a book about an 18th-century shipwreck. They wanted a map to show the route of Vrouw Maria, a merchant ship carrying Dutch Masters paintings from Amsterdam to Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately it sank off the coast of Finland and the treasures were lost for over 200 years. Continue reading more about this map and the upcoming book.
A few months ago, Victoria Adams contacted me to create 4 maps for a book she’s writing about the Book of Job. These maps will illustrate the text, including Biblical locations and places where later commentators lived and travelled. She wanted maps that would give her readers a sense of geography, distance, and cultural background. Read more about this project.
I have created maps for a wide variety of subjects. Some authors I've worked with have written travel books; some have written history books; some commission maps for articles they are submitting to academic journals.
Read below to see some questions I ask my clients when designing academic or historical maps. These maps are meant to give context to the reader, to highlight places mentioned in the text.
