Landranger Map of Auckland
Day 30 of #30DayMapChallenge
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My new home in the style of my old home
I grew up in a house full of Ordnance Survey paper maps, and have constantly used them to navigate my way around the great British outdoors. To me, not only are they detailed and accurate representations of that small part of the world, but they are also works of art.
As much as I love any kind of map, the LINZ Topo50 maps just don’t do it for me. They are still beautiful in their own way, and they now feel almost as familiar to me as OS maps, but they just don’t resonate with me on an aesthetic level.
However, the vector data in the LINZ Topo50 maps is freely available, so why not bring the OS style down under? Why not indeed. I’m very happy with the result. It has a familiarity on two levels. At a glance it is to me clearly an OS style map, but also clearly a map of Auckland.
This map is unfinished, but finished enough that it serves its purpose and I’m happy to publish it for the final day of the #30DayMapChallenge.
The most obvious missing elements are the text annotations. I wanted to include these, and one day I will, but I just didn’t have time. As anyone in cartography will tell you, annotation placement is often the most time consuming part of creating a map.
I also want to spend time adding the little blue symbols that represent, for example, golf courses, viewpoints, nature reserves, etc.
Finally, my ultimate aim for this is to make it part of a full sized paper map, complete with marginalia and the defining reddish-pink OS Landranger cover. The work involved in finishing this map off could occupy a whole #30DayMapChallenge in itself!