8-BIT IS BACK

I hate to be blunt, but if you're reading a blog about mapping, then you're also probably interested in fantasy games & novels, and you are therefore my friend, a nerd - Nerd! So instead of denying the truth, you might as well click on the latest April fools day stunt by the good people at google maps... similar to a previous Choice map post a few years back called retro get it yo, google has gone and turned our world into an 8-bit fantasy quest. Nerd!

CIUDAD NAZCA

If (like me) you find yourself fascinated by the mysterious Nazca Lines in Peru, or perhaps you enjoyed the imaginary 'set' construction within the excellent movie Dogville, or if you're some weird Choice Map Tuesday fan who has actually read my other posts: castles made of sand or the mysterious sliding rocks of the racetrack Playa (?), then this post's for you!!! If not, well to be honest then I got nothing for ya and you're not welcome here anyway!... just joking, I desperately need you to watch this video of a 1:1 scale imaginary city mapped-out in the middle of nowhere.

WISDOM OF THE WIND

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south then it turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. All the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, like chasing after the wind
- Ecclesiastes 4:14

WATER-COLOUR COOLNESS

Most people are probably familiar with the water-colour paintings of Monet or Kandinsky and assume that this style is no longer relevant to us in this day-and-age, but then again most people are idiots, and aren’t familiar with Stamen designs. Stamen (pronounced in a similar way to ‘Newman’ of Seinfeld) are always doing such cool things, that they make us fellow map-makers jealous. One such work is this dynamic water-colour world-map. "Stamen!"
If you're actually interested in this (?), here's how they did it... water-colour and texture.