Typewriter Maps
November 2018Honorable Mention, CaGIS 2019 Map Awards
In November 2018, I remembered that I had a typewriter in the basement: my father's old Royal Safari II. In the search for a good excuse to make use of it, I landed on the idea of making some typographic maps.
They are full of smudges from the ribbon, alongside errors corrected with a generous application of Wite-Out. But I’m quite pleased with their messy, organic, analog nature. Others seemed to be, too. In an era of digital precision, I think people yearn for an organic feeling.
I made attemps to do a “vector”-like map, as well as a couple with “raster”-like effects by using different characters to create different levels of darkness. If you step back/squint, you can kind of see it working.
More detail on the process, as well as high-resolution images, can be found on my blog.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c3f613f6d72ef829ff3c9e6142225216db37b4cd0f44152c41fc60d99bb83197/lakemichiganrivers_o.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6d8b1105701a6f41ec02beb0967ae5d72518633b763599c9fc6aba01e606b9ee/typetwo_o.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1da4452852745406efca2bc69ed1d9e083e22172d5f3a8c0121cecdd4350c1cf/type3_o.jpg)