What's your map style?
Do you have favorite maps? When purchasing a map, what do you find attractive? What should you focus on when map collecting?
Here is a break-down of map attributes to be aware of...
- Inspiration What most attracts you to maps? Is it...
- Line If you find yourself tracing borders or roads, you are probably attracted to line. You should focus on maps that have interesting borders, shorelines, and roads.
- Shape When you look at a map, do you look at how wide and tall and a subject is? What is its shape compared to the shape of another place on the map? Do you focus on Italy as a boot, or France as an hexagon? If so, you are probably attracted to shape. You would probably enjoy maps of states and countries to see how they look and compare.
- Color Do you respond more to vegetation being green than a symbol for a tree? Are you prone to looking at the colors in a legend rather than symbols. You may prefer maps based on color. Thematic maps with areas represented by color are probably a good choice for your preference.
- Texture Do you like old hand-made maps with shaded shorelines, speckled oceans, or gradated contour shorelines? Do you like hand-colored maps that naturally vary in shade? You probably appreciate texture in your maps. Look for maps that don't have flat colors. Old maps with ocean waves are good. Hand-painted maps with variable colors are good.
- Value Value is simply the contrast in dark and white. If regular political maps with pale colors don't excite you, but maps with rich color and strong borders and road do, you probably appreciate value (or tone) in your maps. Look for maps with strong contrasting color between water and land, or strongly lined ornamentation.
- Composition
- Focal point Do you prefer maps that focus on a single subject or area? Are road atlases too much, but simple/major roads linking cities are enjoyable? Do you ask yourself, "What's the point of this map?" You want a clear focus for your maps. You should focus on maps that have a specific purpose - charts, subject matter, or geographic location.
- All-over composition Do you prefer maps that show everything in the area for you to explore? All-over composition have no particular point of interest. They present geographic information. It is up to you to interpret and find utility. Consider road atlases and maps of city locations.
- Size Large maps or small maps? Wall maps or pocket maps. Which do you like best?
- Subject Do you focus on maps of certain areas, such as a state, a country, a continent? You prefer specialty maps about certain subjects, such as food or culture? A certain time period?
- Type Do you have a preference for a certain type of map? Type might be road atlas, world map, cartoon map, geologic map, topographic map.
What to do with this information?
Look at your favorite maps, the ones that really inspire you. The ones you could look at over and over...
What attracts you? Compare the list above and be conscious as you look at the maps.
Now make a list of those things. Not everything may be important to you. If not, leave it off the list.
For example, I prefer maps with line, texture, and value. I like approximately letter-page maps with focal points and am more interested in history and culture than topography. You will probably notice this on maps I have chosen for this website. We each just have our own preferences.
But now that I am conscious of my preferences, I can better collect maps that are meaningful to me. I can also better express to map dealers what I am looking for...
- Interesting shorelines.
- Black and white or monochromatic maps with light and dark areas.
- Shorelines with graded colors into the ocean.
- Cultural or historical ornamentation.
- About page-sized.
I don't exclusively limit myself to all these points, but a map better have several of them to catch my attention.
Types of maps
Learn more about different types of maps. Maybe this list will help you discover your map style.