The Art of the Map

Vintage Map Die Cut Birds by The Brighton Emporium

World Map Wall Sticker by Vinyl Impression

Auckland City Map by Jenna Sue Maps

Once upon a time, before going to grad school for Illustration and starting a design career, I majored in Geography. Amongst the many lucrative careers I imagined enjoying with a degree in geoscience was the art of mapmaking. Despite having strayed from that path I do still love maps and, in a wonderful marriage of the two worlds, people are doing all sorts of fun things these days combining maps and art. Above are some of my favorite examples from Etsy (top to bottom):

The Brighton Emporium offers super-cute birds cut from vintage maps.

I love this giant wall sticker map, complete with pins, to mark where you've visited from Vinyl Impression.

Jenna Sue Maps makes these colorful and inventive abstract maps of most major cities. You can customize sizes, colors and cities. This is one of those ideas I wish I'd thought of!