Designer + Cartographer
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World Atlas Redesign

World Atlas Redesign

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Summary

Alongside general day-to-day edits to all Herff Jones | Nystrom mapping products, the World Atlas underwent a dramatic change in its visual design, warranting an overhaul of every map within its pages.

My Part

Cartographer

Skills Learned + Demonstrated

  • Thematic and reference map design

  • Adherence to the creative process (learn, draft, create, revise)

  • Minimalist design principles

The Proposal

The World Atlas had become dated with its use of drop shadows, extraneous detail, and stale color blocking and was in dire need of a refresh. Aside from graphics and layout design, the maps themselves underwent a major removal of anything that was unecessary to the core message of the map. In addition, all maps and graphics needed to come together to create a product that has visual consistency from page to page.

What I Did

Although the design varied slightly from map to map, the overall visual consistency was carefully thought out. In all cases this meant the removal of key lines and shadows. Some maps were converted to floating maps if the ocean geography and gridlines were unimportant. Other maps, such as the political world maps, gained relief and new type and color treatments. The legends received similar treatment.

The Result

Close-up of Europe for the political world map. The new treatment with relief (left) vs old treatment (right) sans-relief.

As well as the standard removal of key lines and shadows, the new world elevation map (left) saw the ocean and gridlines being removed as well as country borders, which added little to the maps core message.

Legends couldn't escape either: combining the border and the title box into one object resulted in a new cleaner legend (left).