Different maps

I decided to look a bit further into the different maps that regular designers had created. I used various Digital art forums and sites for this and selected 3 very different maps of which i liked the best. As you can see these maps are completely different from one another, yet represent the same subject.

The middle map is obviously an artists attempt to steer away from the conventional method of map making/viewing but are we sure that this works? Its all well and good attempting to make something that has hidden meaning and good visual aesthetic but if it lacks the ability to tell the viewer information it looses its purpose as a map, and i suppose that is a skill. Its also interesting to see from the first map, how they have indeed changed over time and our need for clear information and the need to include new technology forms has increased.

Mapping stonehouse , or at least it looks like a map, doesn't it?

So we all had a good crack at mapping a certain subject on the area of stonehouse, was interesting to see how this turned out, and even though similar subjects had been mapped, its weird to see how everyone approaches this differently. Without a key to this map viewers, even me find it very hard to establish what is being represented, although im sure we could take a rough guess due to the nature of humans tending to visualise data in a standard way.

Me, Karla, Jon, Luke and Matt all have our subject representations compiled on this one singular map. It forms a very artistic view while providing visual representations of certain stonehouse attributes. So on this map the following are mapped:

KEY

• Aura : Thin blue lines and dark red lines.
  
• Noise pollution : Blue flares
  
• Desirability : Green flares
  
• Population density : Dots.
  
• Population movement : Light red and purple lines.

After this map was conceived our group actually went to the stonehouse area. If we refer back to the map we weren't far wrong, and found that the area was quite typical and easy to judge that of a seaside city, even thought this are of Plymouth seems very run down and needs vast regeneration in parts.

Stonehouse

So our first group task was to take a different view of the stone house area of Plymouth. As a class we learnt that we are so used to seeing things in a conventional manor such as viewing cities and their elements from views provided by google earth. By using google earth its easy for anyone to see roads, buildings and paths easily mapped, it is thinking beyond these standard elements that becomes hard.

As a group we then set out to individually map out a certain subject on the map of stone house, that when compiled together along with the others would form an aura of the stone house area. It was hard at first to understand what to do with this task, but it merely took getting to grips with one idea for it to spark a creative flare in photo shop.

I took this approach........

I decided to map the areas aura, which includes the concentration or not as the case may be of activities to do in stone house. It was hard especially since i had no been to stonehouse yet, so exploring this space without experience was a task in itself.

The blue lines represent density of aura. The more in a certain space the higher the aura of that area of stonehouse. The red lines represent the boundaries of this aura within stonehouse. Without having been there it was hard to judge where to put them, however  i based it on what you would expect from a main street and a coastal section.

Test post

test post idat 101

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