IMIA Report – Feb 2014

Andi Adams, proprietor of Andimaps, had been the local relief postman for nine years in Denmark, a town of 5,000 on the south coast of Western Australia, when he came up with the idea of making and publishing a local map guide.

He was asked by the postal manager to make a map of the town postal delivery run. “It was my first lesson in how long it takes to make a map. When I finished the map I ‘signed’ it ‘Andimaps’ which came into my head without a second thought. I only realised why it had a ring when people would give me a nudge and a wink about the apparent dropped H or simply called it the Handimaps. I hadn’t calculated that at all.”

Andi realised there were no good, local maps of the area. So he embarked on the task of making some real maps and publishing them. Without any formal cartographic training the steep learning curve began. In the following months, while doing an unrelated full-time course, Andi worked on the maps every evening. Eight months later, ten thousand copies of the first Denmark Street Guide were published. It was hugely successful and immediately became the local guide to use.

“Back then, the maps were produced by hand on drafting film and bromides, with wax-backed printouts of text and symbols cut out and affixed to the drafts.” he said. After four years of publication Andi purchased his first computer. The next steep learning was to digitally redraw the maps, as well as draft new ones of other towns for publication that year.

“There was so much I didn’t know about using the software. Attending my first IMIA map industry conference, I met other cartographers who were amazed at the amount of work I had done without the knowledge of certain techniques that they as professionals, or more experienced practitioners, already knew. Attending that first map conference also gave me an insight into the context of the industry I was working in. I had no previous association with the mapping profession – the south coast of Western Australia is quite an isolated part of the world (It’s 400 kilometres from Perth with not very much population in between).

“All aspects and processes of the business from production to sales, to the everyday running of the business were learnt as encountered, by jumping in the deep end, in the early days.” “There were times when I would feel overwhelmed by the hugeness of what I had created – to not only keep up production, but to engage all advertising sales – something I had had no formal training in either. If it wasn’t for the encouragement and mentorship of certain people I was working with I may not have persisted.”

Once Andi started the business, he recalled all the different maps he had made as a child and in later years and his love of maps. The mapping industry has changed enormously over the last two decades, but throughout that time Andimaps’ free-to-the-public paper maps have remained strong and viable. “Andimaps has evolved as another medium for local advertisers, like a newspaper, like TV. Online and digital maps are not replacements but are alternatives – just as kindles are for books and emails are for phones.”

Today Andimaps collectively publishes 400,000 copies of Street Guides for 11 towns of WA annually. This year, the 5 millionth Andimaps Street Guide will be published.

Len Guelke

Today’s map-buyer has many world maps to choose from, but the most popular ones do not provide map users a sense that they live on a spherical planet and fail to give them a sense of how the continents are actually located on a three dimensional surface. These shortcomings come about because many world maps are rectangular in shape and are centered on the Equator. Ellipsoidal modifications of this format do a little more to suggest a spherical world, but like rectangular maps are generally centered on the equator and badly distort the distances and locational relationships among places and countries in higher latitudes. In particular, on most world maps, the actual global connections among the planet’s most populous countries are simply not depicted crossing the Arctic Ocean (as it mostly the case) and shortest routes between places look as though they invariably follow lines of latitude.

There is also a problem related to where the maps are centered along the east/west axis, because these rectangular and ellipsoidal maps require the cartographer to select more or less arbitrarily some meridian to be the central meridian of the map. This selection places some countries at the center of the map and relegates others to its edges giving an impression that such countries are marginal countries disconnected from the hub of the world.

The above critique highlights key inadequacies of the popular world maps of our time. More importantly, one must ask “can anything be done to improve this situation?”  A first step in any such quest would presumably involve setting out the requirements better world maps would need to meet and what follows seeks to do just that.

The Requirements for a Better World Map

The first imperative of any world map, purporting to represent the reality of the earth, is that it should look like the object it seeks to portray, that is it should give map users an unmistakable, visual image of the spherical planet they actually inhabit.

A second imperative of world maps is that they should provide as accurate picture as possible of the relative locations of the world’s countries and the connections among them.

A third imperative is that the shapes and areas of countries should accurately reflect the reality of the spherical earth, with little or no distortion. Ideally, the map should be an equal-area map (or close to equal-area) and all countries should be immediately recognizable by their shapes alone, even when distorted to some degree.

A fourth imperative is that the world should be shown as a continuous surface without interruptions or arbitrary breaks, mirroring in this respect the spherical earth which is such a continuous surface.

This is a challenging list of requirements. World maps in general circulation today come nowhere meeting most of them. This situation could be attributed to the basic fact that no map portrayal of our spherical earth can replicate all its characteristics on a flat surface, but such an explanation, while true, has the effect of simply bolstering the status quo from any competition even should there be better world maps to be had on little known projections or new ones yet to be imagined.

The Lambert World Map

As it happens there is one little-used projection (known to cartographers as the Lambert Azimuthal projection) that is capable of giving a fine map rendition of the spherical earth that meets most of the imperatives listed above.

Note:  Article to be continued in the March IMIA Report.

London Book Fair

8th – 10th April 2014

Earls Court, London

IMIA will again have a stand at the London Book Fair and as a member, you can benefit. Panels are available for purchase. The benefits of purchasing a panel are: 

• YOU promote your company at the world’s second largest book fair.
• YOU have space to conduct meetings.
• YOU avoid the full cost of a stand.
• YOU are free to visit other stands without being tied to one place.
• YOU have refreshments on hand for your guests and you.
• Includes exhibitor passes for your guests and you.

PRICES: US$1200 or AUS$1280 or €900 or £750 per panel plus VAT where applicable.

(NB: price includes exhibitor entry pass). Please contact your Executive Director for further information.

Confirmed Exhibitors to Date: ITMB Publishing Ltd., Interkart GmbH, MapSherpa,  MapsofWorld, AppsNRanks, mbmSytems, GeoCentre,  and XYZ Maps Ltd.

Potential Exhibitor: Global Mapping