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Mapping a Changing World
One cartographer hopes to bridge technology and aesthetic in a modern age of mapmaking

By Meagan Flynn

Nat Case’s dining room table is about the only flat surface in his home large enough to contain his map of the world, a draft of his latest work. The mapmaker is proudest of this one, mostly because its details speak loudly to his commitment to the physicality of what he creates. His world map is 25 feet long and 13 wide. Its color scheme is a refined blend of light blues and sandy browns, its font a confident serif.

But in the field of cartography, demand for such intricate, physical maps has slumped. And so when asked why he is so drawn to these maps, as opposed to the ever-advancing digitized alternatives, Case thinks for a while with his hand over his forehead.

“Well,” he says finally, “I can think of a couple different answers.”

None of them are simple. One is that he likes to think of maps as beautiful, as having decorative properties — while a big chunk of his industry generally does not. Another is because he thinks hanging a map on a wall is a cultural tradition, lending collective identity to diverse populations. But when it comes down to it, Case realizes that the physical object he makes is disappearing rapidly. He’s not trying to preserve it — in fact, he avoids that word. He’s trying to repurpose it.

Tech Takes Over

“In the case of mapmaking, technology has intervened,” Case says. “For so many people, once you get on a mobile phone, it works better. You say, ‘Tell me how to get to Third and Central,’ and it tells you. I at least grew up with the idea that you found your way by looking at a map. But nowadays, what people want is a series of directions.”

Which means road atlases at gas stations are seldom in need of restocking. Technology’s intervention in cartography means that guys like Case are on a slow, downward spiral, similar to the one typesetters fell into, when the Macintosh and PC could suddenly design fonts easier than they could. It’s meant that, over the past few decades, the centuries-old craftsmanship, once requiring careful engraving and a steady index finger, has slipped away.

Instead, it’s been replaced by Geographic Information System (GIS) software. With GIS, a computer can use latitudes and longitudes to engineer maps, so that cartographers don’t have to survey the land and etch every notch of the fjord themselves. They can simply input the data into Adobe Illustrator or similar desktop programs. Then, instead of engraving lines on a copper plate, like in the early 20thcentury, they trace them with their mouse over a photographic, scanned image. GIS software can also express demographic data on its maps, use satellite information to show how we use our land, or display an array of greens to compare vegetation regions. Basically, if the data has anything to do with location, GIS can do it. It’s nothing new: GIS has been around since the early ’70s. But since then, the software has become steadily more sophisticated, requiring less work from the cartographer with each new development.

“The stable of people who identify themselves as cartographers is shrinking,” Case says. “The process at which maps are made is getting more and more automated and generated. [The industry] is a gradually shrinking pie.”

 

Back to Analog

Last May, Case left his full-time job at Hedberg Maps to go the freelance route. He had been working for Tom Hedberg since 1991, when he began as a clerk in Hedberg’s Latitudes Map and Travel Store to pay his way through grad school at the University of Minnesota. He and Hedberg published their first map together — of the Lakes District of Minneapolis — later that year.

At the time he broke into the field, early desktop graphics programs were beginning to replace a technique called “scribecoat” — a process that needed to be precise, but could only be completed by hand. It involves layering up to 50 different opaque sheets to create printing plates. One sheet may include solid red text, the names of capital cities, for example. Another may be for purple lines to represent roads. Case took the very last scribecoat class at the U of M before it went obsolete at the hands of computers.

Now as a freelancer Case sustains himself by creating maps of tourism-heavy cities, bike trails and college campuses — much like he did at his full-time job. However, finding freelance assignments has been rough, and most don’t allow Case the creative and experimental freedom he hoped to enjoy. It’s become a desk job that falls short of any romantic notions consumers have about adventurous cabals of mapmakers charting treacherous territory.

But it’s projects like his map of the world that keep him fueled. Case still embraces advances in technology to create his own maps. In fact, though his world map resembles a 19th century, stone lithography-style map, it was still designed in Adobe Illustrator and printed using standard methods. But in the near future, Case would like to experiment with more traditional printing techniques. “Over the last 50 years or so, printing techniques have been for mass production, have been for efficiency and cheapness,” he says, “rather than physical quality of the stuff.” Case is interested in fine printing, letterpress printing and intaglio — the old ways.

He hasn’t had his chance to experiment yet. In the meantime, he’ll let his electronic tools aid him in producing maps whose physical qualities at least emulate the archaic craft, which his field, historically, has not been quick to appreciate. He has qualms with his industry’s goal of “making maps pretty” — placing function and efficiency too far above physical appeal — because he thinks it undermines their beauty. But if the traditional, foldable maps on gas station racks have shed their role as direction providers, then Case, along with a small community of others like him, is aiming to place more emphasis on aesthetics. He disagrees with his industry: There’s a reason maps should be decorative.

“A map makes a statement about a chunk of the world that’s much bigger than ourselves,” he says. “It gives the map user a larger-than-themselves self. But it also allows a sense of identity to a bunch of people coming together. I’d like to see that sense expressed in ways that are more open-ended — more beautiful — that are more about values that aren’t command and control-based. We’ve gotten, as a field, so invested in usefulness that I think we’ve kind of blinded ourselves to other values beyond that.”

It goes back to his goal of repurposing. Even digitally, Case is interested in new ways to make maps. He’s intrigued by Apple Maps’ 3D view, which users can fully manipulate on their screens.

He grabs his iPad and pulls up a 3D map of Minneapolis, a contrast to his more traditional world map resting right under the screen. He’s curious about the interactive, “verby” direction that digital maps might take his field. He explores the city with his fingertips for a bit before glancing at the iPad’s clock, remembering he needs to pick up his son. Case wraps up. But before heading out, he hands over his contact information — in “the more traditional, print form,” he says — and then he offers a set of directions back to the Interstate.

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Photo courtesy of Meagan Flynn

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