Andy Woodruff  · Cartographer | Blog

General cartography

Zombie psychogeography

23 August 2010 tagged Boston, exploration, psychogeography, urban geography, wandering, zombies with 1 comment

I’m very weary of the hipster obsession with zombies by now. Cut it out, hipsters. So I felt shame the other night as my friend and I sprinted through the dark along treacherously uneven brick sidewalks, running from zombies and loving it. Not real zombies, or even hipsters—we were responding to an awesome app for […]

Value-by-alpha maps

8 June 2010 tagged Academic, vlaue by alpha with 13 comments

The latest issue of the The Cartographic Journal (of the British Cartographic Society) contains a paper written by Robert Roth, me, and Zachary Johnson entitled “Value-by-alpha Maps: An Alternative Technique to the Cartogram.” The value-by-alpha map is something I have touched on here several times over the past year and a half (as has Zach […]

Norumbega, New England’s lost city of riches and Vikings

24 May 2010 tagged Boston, cartography myth, history, vikings with 13 comments

“Here, at modern Watertown, was the ancient CITY OF NORUMBEGA.” While preparing data for another spare time local interest map (forthcoming), I ran across a tiny bit of information (“Horsford’s Norse exploration theory”) that ended up captivating me for the weekend. It is the story of Norumbega, at various points a regional name applied to […]

Footprints

2 March 2010 tagged dayton, minimal maps, ohio with 10 comments

In spite of everything that maps can do, the ones I enjoy most are the simplest of all, those that reveal geography by stripping away all but some particular phenomenon and showing little or nothing more than where it exists. It’s the challenge of interpretation, or the self-satisfaction of recognizing something, or the imagining of […]

Obligatory Valentine’s Day map

14 February 2010 tagged frivolous, indiemapper, valentines day with 4 comments

Even while under the knife as we do some final development work, indiemapper sends its love. Remember, the sweetest sentiment today and forever is:

The “Pacific Islands” are actually just a myth

2 February 2010 tagged antarctica, bad maps, pacific with 7 comments

So when you map them, go ahead and omit most of the Pacific. It’s empty anyway. The same goes for Terra Australis, but it is customary to retain an “Antarctica” label as a joke. Seen at Franklin Park Conservatory, Columbus, Ohio.