Oblotzky’s SA Metro is a custom keycap set for mechanical keyboards “inspired by big city transit maps.” I know you don’t look at the keys when touch typing, but … man. [Boing Boing]
Category: Memorabilia
An Error-Ridden Tube Map Shower Curtain
Speaking of Londonist, they had a great deal of fun pedantically savaging a decidedly unofficial tube map shower curtain. “This error-ridden shower curtain was purchased via a random seller on ebay, whom we’re not going to gratify with a link. A bit of googling reveals that tube shower curtains are a bit of a thing. There are many variations out there, all presumably knocked together and marketed without permission from Transport for London.” (So much of a thing that I thought I’d linked to something like this before, but apparently not. No doubt my readers can send me links.)
Previously: Map Shower Curtain and Bikini; More Map Shower Curtains; Sea Monster Shower Curtain.
Great Circles in Cardboard
The Global Map is a neat toy from the 1940s. The whole thing is just under one by two feet in area, and consists of two rotating hemispheres that touch at a single point, with the purpose of showing the shortest distance by air or sea between two points—a quick and dirty way of showing a great-circle route with a bit of cardboard and no math. From the David Rumsey Map Collection. [Maps on the Web]
Mini Metros
Mini Metros shrinks and simplifies 220 subway and light rail systems; the end result fits on a single sheet. Its creator, Peter Dovak, explains the challenge of making small and simple representations of sometimes inordinately complex transit systems:
All of the cities in the project had the same requirements: they had to fit in a 120px circle (with 10px of padding), the lines had to be 3px wide with a minimum of another 3px between the next parallel line, and all diagonals had to be 45-degrees. The systems themselves needed to be full-fledged heavy rail metro systems or light rail networks that were distinct enough from trolleys or streetcars.
Prints and mugs are available. [Maptitude]
Dymaxion Folding Globe
This morning’s post about the AuthaGraph World Map reminded me of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map (which after all was explicitly referenced by its creator). Designer Brendan Ravenhill has produced a version of Fuller’s map in the form of a magnetic folding globe. Wired: “Like Fuller’s original map, Ravenhill’s globe can exist in two or three dimensions. Laid flat, it’s a series of 20 triangles that show Fuller’s projection as a single landmass. The back of each triangle features a magnet so you can fold the map into an angular globe. ‘Really it’s a toy, but a toy that has a lot of resonance and importance,’ Ravenhill says.” $15 each, in three colours. [Sociative GIS]
Wonderground Map Calendar
Here’s a coincidence for you. On Saturday, the day after I posted about an exhibition of MacDonald Gill’s pictorial maps, I discovered, while shopping at a local stationery store, that there was such a thing as a MacDonald Gill Wonderground Map of London calendar. (It’s also available on Amazon.)
Previously: MacDonald Gill Exhibition in San Diego; MacDonald Gill’s Wonderground Map.
Sea Monster Shower Curtain
Retired graphic designer Don Moyer is producing a sea monster shower curtain, inspired by the iconic beasties found on early modern European maps and based on a sea monster print he created last year. It’s a Kickstarter project, but since it’s already been funded, it’s definitely happening. So if your world map shower curtain is beginning to fray, here’s an alternative. [Mental Floss]
Ian’s 3D Relief Maps
Planetary globes aren’t the only map-related 3D-printed items being sold on Shapeways; Ian Grasshoff writes to say that he’s flogging 3D relief maps there as well. “I have made it a focus to only use Open Data (LiDAR where available) and Open Source GIS/modeling software,” he writes. “I think the results speak for themselves.”
LEGO Globe
Dirk’s LEGO globe consists of nearly 4,000 bricks. With the stand, it reaches half a metre in height (20 inches) and weighs 7.3 kg (16 pounds). The project page describes the project in obsessive detail, with lots of photos.
Game of Thrones Map Marker Set
Dark Horse has released a Game of Thrones map marker set, based on a map and markers briefly seen in the first season of the HBO TV series. What surprises me is how much more the map resembles a real-world medieval map, in its use of symbols and text, than do the usual fantasy maps, including those for Westeros (though, as I’ve argued before, real-world medieval maps were much more information-dense, and covered in text). At $200, it’s not cheap, but the markers are up to six inches in height, and the map is made of fabric and roughly four by three feet in size. It’s available for purchase at Amazon and ThinkGeek, among others.