Abstract
Abstract. Creation of a map artifact that can be recognized, accepted, read, and absorbed is the cartographer's chief responsibility. This involves bringing coherence and order out of chaos and randomness through the construction of map artifacts that mediate processes of social communication. Maps are artifacts, first and foremost: they are artifacts with particular formal attributes. It is the formal aspects of the map artifact that allows it to invoke and sustain a reading as a map. This paper examines Cartographic Design as the sole means at the cartographer's disposal for constructing the meaning bearing artifacts we know as maps, by placing it in a center of a practical analytic framework. The framework draws together the Theoretic and Craft aspects of map making, and examines how Style and Taste operate through the rubric of a schema of Mapicity to produce high quality maps. The role of the Cartographic Canon, and the role of Critique, are also explored, and a few design resources are identified.
Highlights
Creation of a map artifact that can be recognized, accepted, read, and absorbed is the cartographer's chief responsibility
First and foremost: they are artifacts with particular formal attributes. It is the formal aspects of the map artifact that allows it to invoke and sustain a reading as a map, and, these formal attributes are of paramount importance, they are seldom directly examined
The outward signs of mapicity are manifested through Cartographic Design, a process which determines the form of the artifact
Summary
Creation of a map artifact that can be recognized, accepted, read, and absorbed is the cartographer's chief responsibility. This involves bringing coherence and order out of chaos and randomness through the construction of map artifacts that mediate processes of social communication. First and foremost: they are artifacts with particular formal attributes. I shall attempt to formally and practically isolate how the artifact mediates that complex process of social communication already mentioned. The only tool set the map maker has at his or her disposal in creating the map artifact is that of Cartographic Design. Cartographic Design itself is the product of a formal symbiotic relationship between Craft and Theory. Theory is the significant body of knowledge about what a map is, what it does, and how it works that is shared across a map literate society
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