I often prefer working in greyscale. Constraints can be freeing, and I appreciate the challenge of trying to fit everything into the limited spectrum. I don't always run into a lot of demand for it, though, from clients, so I was fortunate to have an opportunity to work on a greyscale series in the summer of 2012. These maps appear in a history by Patrice Dabrowski, titled Poland: The First Thousand Years, published by Northern Illinois University Press.

I’m pleased with my solution for rivers running coincident with borders: I offset the river or border, so that they now run parallel. This avoids having to overlay them in a way that might be ambiguous.

We didn’t have time to gather detailed information about historical borders of areas outside of poland, so sometimes those fade off before the edge of the map is reached.