A Map of the World According to Illustrators and Storytellers edited by Antonis Antoniou, R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, and H. Hellige (review)

Creativity has tended to be the focus of critical reviews of the work of map artists, and significant overviews from Katherine Harmon (2003, 2010) have begun to popularize the profusion of map art in contemporary society. However, many more people are probably exposed to creative mapping produced as useful art, to accompany magazine articles or as part of an advertising campaign. Over 20 years ago Nigel Holmes (1991) published an important but relatively undervalued history and exploration of this genre. Graphic designers have continued to produce striking designs for publication in magazines, or as part of advertising campaigns, but there have been very few attempts to bring this work together to reveal the creative power behind this kind of mapping. This volume is a notable exception.

A Map of the World According to Illustrators and Storytellers claims to showcase the best contemporary examples in this field. It is a large-format volume featuring the work of 91 designers who use maps for cutting-edge illustration, experimental data visualization, and personal visual storytelling. There are very few words in this volume. In a two-page preface that sets the scene for the visual feast that follows, the editors argue for a contrarian view of mapping and position their book as an antidote to cartographic monotony and contemporary obsessions with accuracy, suggesting instead that mapping plays an important part in storytelling. This volume thus very much fits a particular zeitgeist (for an exploration of the potential of narrative cartography, see Caquard 2013). The preface offers very little explanation of why particular images have been selected. Captions for the visuals offer a limited description of each designer’s work, but no attempt is made to organize or to properly contextualize the often eclectic selection of material. Arguably this is both a strength and weakness: the visuals stand or fall on their design quality alone, and the pitfalls of visual artists’ offering pretentious and plodding descriptions of their work are avoided. The book has no index, but there is a listing of artists, alphabetized by author’s first name, that indicates where their work may be found in the book and points to their nationality and Web address.

Some of the full-colour plates that follow were commissioned by magazines; some are separately published as maps, or issued as part of advertising campaigns. A few stand in their own right as works of map art. The majority of these striking maps, however, are largely unknown and relatively ephemeral. The geography represented in these works is strikingly urban: 139 of the graphics depict cities, and London in particular receives disproportionate attention. The global range of the featured work is also limited, as 34 of the artists are based in the United Kingdom, 14 are from the United States, and 8 are from Germany. There is not a single piece of work from the global South.

Almost all of the visuals in this volume could be described as pictorial, and most are strikingly colourful. Their stylistic range is huge. Sparse modernist designs such as Lamosca’s Mapa de la Literatura Catalana and Joao Lauro Fonte’s silk-screen typographic map, Boots Adventures in London, are juxtaposed with detailed pictorial isometric city maps such as the striking Tokyo Skytree Map, produced by Teamlab and originally published as 40-m mural. Very few of these maps are well known. The Dorothy Film Map and works by Stephen Walter including The Island are included, as are extracts from Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands, but the majority of the maps published in this book are likely to be new to its readers.

This volume stands or falls on the basis of its graphics. They are carefully reproduced, and the full-colour format and page design work well. This is a really nice book to browse. It does not offer...