Maps have always caught my eye but I never thought of making them until I was laid off from an IT job at a large company and realized I didn’t want to do that kind of work anymore – I wanted to do something creative. So I went back to school and fell in love with cartography.
Many micro-businesses don't have time to keep up with social media, or budget to hire marketing companies. I tried many social media schedulers and finally found Publer. I can easily customize posts to all my social media channels. Their free plan is amazing, and their flexible paid plans are a great value.
In the past year I've spent a lot of time expanding my shop and figuring out what's next. I'll add more city and lake maps, more downloadable park maps, and more product types. And, as always, I'm here for you when you want a custom map.
It's been a very good week so far. I've just submitted the final draft for a map of the Philippines for a professor and will soon start a new project for a map of an imaginary world for another client.
My new client liked the work plan I laid out; the professor couldn't believe how easy this was for her. I realized that I've developed a process over the years that is now second-nature to me, and one that my clients consistently appreciate. Here's a look back at how my brand and design process developed over the years.
Many businesses and non-profits use social media as primary marketing channels, but there's still a place for brochures. Whether you mail print brochures or have them as downloads on your website, compelling imagery is important to attract attention. Maps of your locations or service areas can help. And we have some brochure templates to get you started.
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.
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...
