Take the 2024 Freelance Mapper Survey
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
2w ago
Friends and colleagues, it’s time once again for the survey that Aly Ollivierre and I conduct every two years. We ask people who do freelance mapping work about their fees and other business practices, in order to help bring more transparency to our little niche of the world, and empower our fellow freelancers to better understand their worth. If you did any freelance mapping last year, no matter how little, we hope you’ll consider taking a few minutes to help out. TAKE THE SURVEY HERE Results will be posted here once we’ve had a chance to review them. Meanwhile, you can review the 2022 result ..read more
Visit website
Another Atlas of Minor Projects
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
2M ago
A few years ago, I compiled a PDF of various small odds-and-ends mapping projects that I’d done. Now, I’ve done it again. Please enjoy Another Atlas of Minor Projects, which houses a few dozen cartographic items that needed a home. DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE ATLAS These are all small, mostly-quick projects that never really merited their own blog post or other fanfare. I may have put them on Twitter or shared them on with colleagues in other informal ways, but I didn’t make them easy to find. But, just because they are comparatively minor, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve some attention ..read more
Visit website
Challenging the Idea of a Bad Map
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
5M ago
We’re just a couple of weeks away from the 30 Day Map Challenge, an annual celebration of cartographic creativity. I know some of you are already brainstorming about what you might do this year. Each day has a prompt, and you’re encouraged to make a map that day that is based on the prompt. Here’s the 2023 list from the website: Day 4’s prompt is “A bad map.” This was also a prompt last year, for Day 10. And while that can be a fun idea, I want to urge people to approach this prompt responsibly. Because it can be easy to produce something for this challenge that can accidentally make others f ..read more
Visit website
Independent Study: A Reflection
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
8M ago
Earlier this summer, I decided to embark on an educational experiment: I wanted to create a version of the independent study groups that I used to co-teach when I was at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in which students would work on a mapping project, and meet weekly for feedback. My version of this “class” just wrapped up, so I want to reflect a bit on how that experience went, especially because I think it would be great if some of you out there wanted to organize something similar! Choosing a Group Over 150 people filled out my initial form indicating their interest, which was far bey ..read more
Visit website
Leopard Map Disassembly
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
10M ago
Friends, it’s been a long while since I last wrote up a walkthrough of one of my mapping projects. So, today, let’s break down a piece that I made earlier this year for Scientific American magazine. This is actually the first of three pieces that I’ve made for Scientific American this year. Much of my freelance work consists of making small, monochrome reference maps for academic books. SciAm, on the other hand, gives me an opportunity to design thematic maps, in color, for a large audience, and it’s a real treat to be able to work with them. Although placing a map in a prestigious publicatio ..read more
Visit website
An Educational Experiment
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
11M ago
It’s time for me to get back to teaching. It’s been a few years since I last taught a course, and I have missed interacting with students. In recent months I’ve promised myself (and others) that I was going to take my introductory cartography lectures and put them online as video or text, for the benefit of a new generation of students. But, in truth, my heart isn’t in it. It’s a big chore that I am constantly putting off. While I have material that I’m excited to share, the style of teaching that works best for me doesn’t really involve long lectures covering cartographic basics. There’s just ..read more
Visit website
Conventional Cartographic Wisdom that I have Failed to Grasp
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
1y ago
When I teach cartography, I am deliberate about not presenting my students with any rules. I do not want obedience to memorized maxims — instead, I simply tell them about practices that I think are good ideas, and then I offer an explanation of my reasoning. The students can choose to follow my advice, or not, based on how they feel about my rationale. It’s always been important to me to know, and to explain, why something is done a certain way. But, there are certain cartographic conventions out there for which I don’t understand the logic. And that bothers me: I need to understand why. I do ..read more
Visit website
The Unnecessary Peril of the Fuller Projection
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
1y ago
This is the Fuller projection, and using it could get you in trouble: Throughout my career, I’ve heard a variety of rumors and conflicting opinions about whether or not that statement is really true. People would tell me that you had to pay a fee to use it, or end up facing a lawsuit. Others said that there was no way anyone could own, or punish you for using, the set of equations that makes up a map projection. This confusion frustrated me. So, over the years, I’ve done a little research in the hopes of getting a definitive picture of the legal issues (if any) that surround the Fuller projec ..read more
Visit website
A New, Unrelated Blog
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
1y ago
Kindly readers: I wanted to let you know that I’ve started another little publication, one which has nothing to do with maps, but I figure is worth telling you about anyway: I climb trees recreationally, and I’ve decided to start writing about my thoughts and experiences. Perhaps a few of you will be interested — after all, you’re the sort of person who reads blogs, and perhaps finds some value in my manner of writing. Plus, with that logo, it already has better branding than this blog (or my actual freelance business). You can check it out at dryad.substack.com, and besides signing up to rec ..read more
Visit website
Thoughts on Practical Cartographic Education
SomethingAboutMaps
by Daniel Huffman
1y ago
While I have not conducted a formal survey, I think I have the right impression when I say that most university cartography courses, at least in the United States, are taught by people whose primary job (when they are not teaching) is not the regular production of maps. These courses are often taught instead by researchers of some sort — people who study map perception, GIS methods, or other geospatial topics. They might make maps on occasion, especially as part of their research work, but they are not generally production cartographers (I’m sure there are exceptions, of course). Now, this is ..read more
Visit website

Follow SomethingAboutMaps on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR