Disney needs a cartographer

I took a look at James Fee’s blog this morning. This is probably one of the most tagged personal Geo blogs I’ve seen.

Anyways, James mentions a map that Disney has on their site showing the route for a 13K and 6.5K run at the MGM studios that was to take place on October 27. Here are links to the maps:

• 13K run
• 6.5K run

Both of these maps look horrible. Most people have been commenting that it looks like someone just grabbed an image and marked it up in Microsoft paint. I’m not sure what they used, but they definitely do not have a cartographic or design sense.

My guess is that this was done without consulting the corporate Disney officials. I’m sure that Disney has a policy on all graphics being made and someone spearheading the “Tower of Terror Run” just wanted to show where the run would take you. Too bad this person doesn’t have attention to detail!!!

Spatial is special!!

I’ll use this moment to get up on my soap box.

I truly believe that we need to remind the world constantly that there is much more to map-making than colors, lines and font. We could talk about the mathematics behind coordinate systems, mapping scales, and geometric points, lines and polygons. Not to mention, the understanding of spatial relationships. These things are not that easy for some, but are essential in mapping and analysis.

Innovations in software and the Internet are blurring the lines quite a bit on mapping, in general. People who never would have looked at a paper map before are “mashing up” all of the time. That’s great!!! But, just because you can mash up a Google map, does not mean that you understand spatial relationships. There still is a great need for geospatial “movers and shakers” to take their place in this “hidden revolution”.