State Boundaries

The large format poster.

The poster published in the 2018 Atlas of Design book.

Atlas of Design

The visual table of contents for the book. State Boundaries is on page 22.

Creative Brief

Crafted Product

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Link to → Atlas of Design "The Atlas of Design, v4 (2018) includes 32 beautiful and inspiring maps from cartographers all around the world, each accompanied by a short essay from the cartographer(s)."Atlas of Design, Volume 4 | Atlas of Design

Goal

This project was commissioned by Nathaniel Pearlman. Growing up in Colorado, Nathaniel developed an interest in maps. We worked with historian Karl Phillips to create a large format poster about how the states took the shapes we have today. Our goal waas to create a complex, rich reading experience that can reward multiple viewings.

Role

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My roles: Art Direction, Data Visualization, Writing

Karl Phillips, GIS mapping, research, and writing
Nathaniel Pearlman, client

Discovery Sketch and style reference from designer Paula Scher.

Process

Discovery

Observations

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After doing some research and working with the raw GIS map file, I decided we could create a map that emulates the look and feel of designer Paula Scher's maps (above). At the same time, I was still designing for honesty: not going too far into design embellishments that might cause our audience to distrust the presentation.

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Early reactions to the sketches that Karl and I were making related to readability. Maps are unique in that you can show way more than five layers of information (the maximum for other charts). However, because one of our layers was the time and evolution of these lines, and we were showing this layer spatially, we had a struggle on our hands. After conversing, we decided to make more maps to create a timeline companion to the main map.

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Our data consisted of over 800 records, beginning in the early 1500s with the discovery of Puerto Rico. We also had an array of boundary types, from natural borders, to treaties and colonial charters.

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We made the Discovery skectches in GIS mapping software and imported them into Adobe Illustrator to make them readable.

Concepts → Blueprint

Working from the GIS files, I eventually was able to create unique typographic styles for each layer of information, and complement those styles with linework. We decided to use bullet points to call out each state, arranged on either side of the map, to provide an index and more information. Data designer Noah Illinsky likes to call ineffective visualization 'spaghetti,' because it appears like a dense tangle of information. The goal, he says, is to make lasagna. By working in layers, I believe that I was able to make the spaghetti into lasagna.

Details of Eastern United States

Detials of Western United States.

Interactive

With my Graphicacy teammate Youyou Zhou, we also designed an interactive. We chose a fun framework, the periodic table of the elements, so that we wouldn't have to worry about spatial geography to answer the reader's primary question: what types of boundary lines belong to each state—and also, how and why did they get them?

Screenshot of the interactive. The interactive is not online at the moment.

Reflection

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This was a formative poster for me to make. I learned that through thoughtful design choices, clarity can be achieved even as you add in layers of information. There were points when I did not think the poster would be received well, and I received negative feedback about its readability. However, I worked through them. A lot of graphic design is about patience and persistence, and not giving up too soon. You can read my further reflection below, in my essay published in the 2018 Atlas of Design.