Map style 2.0

When I was put in charge of the graphics department, we were stuck in giant rut, and our maps were really, well, flat. We were nudged to try totally different processes, and eventually turned to Google Earth. Now, all our maps start out as Google Earth images.

I keep forgetting to put any of the graphics I do up here. Granted they're not super extensive, but considering that I've come up with the process we use from scratch, I'm kinda proud of myself and think it would be good to sort of document the evolution.

For starters, I give you this monster. It's a map of the Redlands Bicycle Classic route.

This is hardly the first graphic I ever made, but it's the first really BIG graphic I ever made. Granted, the information being presented didn't warrant the size we gave it. But I was asked to create something this size to fill a double-truck spread for one of our commercial publications. So I dove in.

Using Photoshop, I overlaid, detailed and tinted something like 17 Google Earth image downloads to create what you see here. Then, with the two map images in place, I added a headline and some copy with more details about the event. (That last step was done on our PC design platform. I'll post the final page here soon.)

Start to finish, the whole thing was a valuable learning project for me... a bit labor intensive when it didn't need to be, but in the end, it helped me see what is and isn't worth the bother when creating maps.