Map of the Month Feb 09 - Typographic Map of the World

In a similar vein to a previous map I chose for the blog (John Yunker's Country Codes of the World), I've stumbled blindly across another 'map as a piece of art' in Vlad Gerasimov's Typographic Map of the World. With its simplistic but effective use of type, it is similar in style perhaps - but is all the more striking due to the use of such bold, almost journalistic, type.

The text placement may look random, but you just know that Vlad would have painstakingly positioned every last bit of type to maximise the effect. Each piece of text has been placed to give the map a perfect sense of balance, where less care could all too easily have lessened the overall effect.



The only geographic information conveyed on the map are country names. And even then, not necessarily every country in full, or even at all in many cases. So in a traditional cartographic sense, it serves little practical purpose. But as a piece of art, it leaps from the page and is immediately both striking, and appealing.

Where information is found lacking in clarity, such as the illegibility of African countries, or the archipelago of Indonesia, the artistic nature of the work is heightened. In such cases, the map doesn't even pretend to convey meaningful information, and the purpose of the text becomes purely aesthetic.

Beyond that, there's perhaps not a lot to say, but rather it is just one to admire. Although of course, like the proverbial jar of marmite, it might be a case of love it or hate it. But I love it.

Another of Vlad's maps worth checking out is his Inverted Map of the World. For more of his work, see http://www.vladstudio.com/