We’ve rebranded our print-on-demand shop as WitMaps, added gift cards and face masks, launched a storefront on Avenza Maps for offline digital maps, and we have free, downloadable PDF templates for map brochures. Lots of new things happening at Julie Witmer Custom Map Design!
People are spending a lot of time outdoors, partly because of the beautiful summer weather, and partly because we are avoiding indoor spaces, and I wanted to find some way to help people enjoy our beautiful parks. These maps will help you locate trails, bike racks, public washrooms, and other facilities while you're out exploring.
With more people biking now, cities are accelerating their scheduled projects or creating new, temporary safe cycling spaces.
And because a lot of new cyclists are part of the 60% of "interested but concerned" group, who might bike if there are safe and stress-free ways to get from point A to point B, it's more important than ever to re-think cycling maps.
Strong Start Charitable Organization needed maps to help them track locations of their literacy programs. They weren't able to find an existing map to suit their needs, so they contacted me to create a custom map that would help them plan expansion of their programs into more school districts. Read more about it here.
There are many ways that maps can help non-profit organizations plan, inform, and educate: tourism marketing groups use them in visitor guides; international NGOs use them in reports; industry associations add them to member location directories; service organizations use them to plan program delivery areas...
The ways to use maps are limited only by your imagination. Once you start noticing maps, you'll see them everywhere. Keep reading to see some examples...
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.
I worked with TravPro Mobile to create maps for many destinations for their mobile sales app. That app informs travel agents about travel destinations. One of our projects was for a map of Central Europe. Read more about the process and see early drafts of the final product.
For the past 3 years I've worked with Mississauga Tourism to update maps for their annual visitor guide. The process takes a few months as they finalize new and changed listings for the coming year. Read about some of the changes to this year's guide, which will be available soon.
I love travelling, and I enjoy creating maps for the tourism industry. Over the years I’ve discovered at least 5 main purposes for tourism maps: for economic development, destination marketing to tourists, marketing for tour companies and travel agents, sponsored tourist maps with ads, and city walking maps. Read more and see examples of these types of maps.
Read about how Brampton launched their new cycling guide in 2018. You'll see how we created the map, step by step, and see what's involved with a large project like this.
