{"id":1819341,"date":"2023-10-18T19:28:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T23:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1819341"},"modified":"2023-10-18T19:28:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T23:28:58","slug":"bad-maps-kindness-and-empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/10\/bad-maps-kindness-and-empathy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Maps, Kindness and Empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2023 iteration of the 30 Day Map Challenge<\/a> is coming up, and Daniel Huffman has some thoughts about the day four prompt<\/a> (\u201ca bad map\u201d) and making room for kindness in the mapmaking community.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fun to play with those things that you\u2019re not supposed to do! But, these are also same kinds of choices that might be made by someone who\u2019s new to our community, and who isn\u2019t as experienced. I\u2019ve seen plenty of students who start out their careers by producing work that is very similar to the material that my colleagues produced when they were prompted to make \u201ca bad map.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine, then, being one of those novices and seeing someone out there make something in the same style as you, and then see people laugh at it. Might you learn a useful lesson about design? Maybe. But there\u2019s a kinder and more effective way to teach the next generation, isn\u2019t there? […]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that I think our community has had a history of toxic critique and gatekeeping. I\u2019ve written about it here<\/a>, and talked about it<\/a> at NACIS. This year, when prompted to make \u201ca bad map,\u201d I invite you to think of \u201cbad\u201d in more ways than just \u201cwhat a beginner would make.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Previously: Thirty Day Map Challenge<\/a>; \u2018One Bad Map a Day in February\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2023 iteration of the 30 Day Map Challenge is coming up, and Daniel Huffman has some thoughts about the day four prompt (\u201ca bad map\u201d) and making room for kindness in the mapmaking community.… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[284],"class_list":["post-1819341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-cartography","tag-mapmaking","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1788833,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/05\/engravers-the-unsung-heroes-of-mapmaking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1819341,"position":0},"title":"Engravers: The Unsung Heroes of Mapmaking","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 May 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"The Bodleian\u2019s Map Room Blog (no relation) has a post about the \u201cunsung heroes\u201d of mapmaking: the engravers. Until the nineteenth century, virtually all printed maps were produced by engraving the map on a sheet of copper\u2014or later on, steel\u2014as a mirror image of how the finished map would look.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1788046,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/11\/some-obsolete-mapmaking-processes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1819341,"position":1},"title":"Some Obsolete Mapmaking Processes","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 November 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"Cartographic services firm Lovell Johns posted this on their blog last April: 5 production processes in map making that are no longer in use. Includes such diverse elements as scribing, waxed type and rotring pens. Darkrooms! [Kenneth Field]","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1840818,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/05\/the-osher-map-librarys-2025-illustrated-mapmaking-contest-for-maine-elementary-students\/","url_meta":{"origin":1819341,"position":2},"title":"The Osher Map Library\u2019s 2025 Illustrated Mapmaking Contest for Maine Elementary Students","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"21 May 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"The Osher Map Library\u2019s illustrated mapmaking contest for elementary school students has been a thing since 2016. For the 2025 contest, some 350 entries from Maine fourth, fifth and sixth graders were received. They\u2019ve been narrowed down to twelve finalists; the winners, who get prizes, will be determined by public\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5774,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/04\/art_and_personal_mapmaking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1819341,"position":3},"title":"Art and Personal Mapmaking","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"14 April 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"Two books (well, one is sort of book-ish) related to map art and personal cartography to tell you about: Map Art Lab: 52 Exciting Art Explorations in Mapmaking, Imagination, and Travel by Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly (Quarry Books, 5\/14): \"map-related activities set into weekly exercises, beginning with legends\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4602,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/07\/hedberg-maps-survives-through-niche-and-custom-mapmaking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1819341,"position":4},"title":"Hedberg Maps Survives Through Niche and Custom Mapmaking","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 July 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Another tale of a traditional map publisher surviving in the face of Google Maps, GPS and smartphones from the\u00a0Star Tribune, which profiled Minneapolis mapmaker Tom Hedberg earlier this month. Hedberg Maps\u2019s traditional map products sell a fraction of what they used to, and they have fewer employees than they used\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Industry"","block_context":{"text":"Industry","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/industry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1785296,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/04\/the-art-of-map-illustration\/","url_meta":{"origin":1819341,"position":5},"title":"The Art of Map Illustration","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"6 April 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What do we mean by mapmaking? That's a less straightforward question than it appears at first glance. A cartographer might talk about projections, scale, use of symbols, deciding which information to put on the map; a digital mapmaker might emphasize GIS and data layers and data sources. Your assumptions about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/the-art-of-map-illustration-224x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1819341"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819344,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819341\/revisions\/1819344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1819341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1819341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1819341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}