According to the ArcNews Summer 2012 issue, the occupation listed as “cartographers and photogrammetrists” has a 2010 estimated employment of 14,000 in the US with a projected growth between 2010 and 2012 2020 of 6,100, for a predicted growth rate of 20%-28%.

This growth rate is the highest reported for the 10 GIS related occupations listed in the ArcNews article, tying with “geodetic surveyors” and “surveyors”. Numerically, however, it is still a relatively small portion of GIS work, considering the categories of “geospatial information scientists and technologists” and “geographic information systems technicians” each have a 2010 estimated employment of 210,000.

ArcNews sites the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as the source.

The nice thing about making maps is that its not like a Jenga game. If you make a mistake, the whole thing doesn’t collapse. It’s called trial and error, and even the best cartographers do a lot of it. Unless you are in a production environment with a highly codified procedure that’s been vetted, has won awards, and basically has been proven effective–which is to say, not for most of us who are working on highly individualized cartographic products–you’ll be starting with your base knowledge and making modifications from there.

Mistake #1) Your assume that your base knowledge is what the client wants. For example, you might think Bell Gothic is fabulous for the project but you’ve failed to either a. feel out what your client likes or b. to ASK what your client wants. You give them Bell Gothic and they say they needed Arial all along because that’s the only thing their boss (a publisher maybe?) can work with. That’s trial and error.

Mistake #2) You assume the client will give you exact specifications for everything. Then what happens is that the client asks you to come up with something using your skills…just give them anything, they aren’t picky. You’ve failed because you wasted their time. When a client hires you and expects you to do all the creative work, they are often looking for a great quality product in a short time frame. They are willing to forgo all control over the exact product, but then again, they hired you based on their perception of your competence. But you waited around and kept asking questions when they really just wanted the product.

Mistake #1 and #2 are quite the opposite pair. And if you are good, you’ll be getting clients wherein you’ll make both mistakes. Good luck. 😉 Some will say that it doesn’t matter what the client wants, you’ve got to make the maps that you want to make regardless of these client constraints. Yes, good luck with that.

There are non-GIS people out and about who are looking for super-easy ways to make maps. Maybe they need to put a dot where their city is for an office presentation. Maybe they need to show a few polygons of their study-area for a thesis. Maybe they need a detailed jpeg showing a map of their area for their website.

Imagine these people as folks who don’t even know the term GIS (see this post for a discussion on explaining GIS concepts to non-GIS people). What do you think they are going to do?

Maybe they’ll take a screen-shot of Google Maps, or put a pin on Google Earth and take a screen-shot of that. Those are the first two things that I’m pretty sure those folks are going to think about doing. Is there any other main-stream way of creating a quick map that these people will think of? Even ArcGIS online is A) too new for these types and B) a bit too confusing (i.e., will the map have to be public, etc.?) for them.*

These aren’t people we want to marginalize, we’ve got to be thinking of them, their needs, and where they are going to turn. They are the bulk of the people out there who need our help.

There are some start-ups out there like mapbiquity (I’m affiliated) to meet this need. Add any you can think of in the comments, please.

*Unfortunately they use the phrase “dissemination of geospatial information” on the welcome page to ArcGIS online. This is, essentially, industry jargon that will put off a casual, one-time user.

Is anyone making serious money with mapmaking? For most, map-making is an art to be studied for your own personal self-interest and to make sure you can adequately communicate the results of your hard-to-understand geo-analysis methods. Making money solely off the map product and nothing else is doable but probably won’t make you a millionaire.

That’s not to be down on the subject. The person selling unique and extremely high-quality map products might make a pretty good living (e.g., typography maps) at it, especially if they sell them without a middle-man. The point is, map-making in itself is not an easy money maker. To make good money at it you need to have something very unique to offer, a way to market it, and a customer base who has money to spend.

Something along those lines might be to consult on historical map verification and content for the would-be investor. This isn’t too far-fetched of an example. Indeed, some are saying that historic maps are the new long-term investment vehicle, superseding other forms of art which have perhaps reached their price peaks.

Without those three big things: a unique map product, a marketing vehicle, and a moneyed customer base, your expertise can be more profitably put to use doing analysis and data manipulation with cartography being a good way to enhance your products as opposed to being your only product.

There are so many map styles out there, some new, some old. Some old styles are being resurrected by some brave cartography professionals, some new styles are being bravely invented by the same. Here are a few of the varying styles that I took note of this week.

• Vintage Picture Map This one is reportedly from a 1931 school book (and is for sale on Etsy, click the picture to go to the sales site. No, I don’t have any stake in this, just liked the map!). Note that these maps often have a single drab brown background, minimal labeling and feature boundaries, and lots of varied stylistic relief. There are plenty of people out there who would love a vintage-looking map like this that is personalized just for them. If you are looking for a niche, this might be one to explore.
  
• Dark Colors A very modern approach is to use very bold colors throughout the map composition. Take a look at this recent example, shown here, that is for a National Geographic iPad app (thanks to @RosemaryDaley).
  
• Free Many of us have no idea how the “free” “business model” approach is going to pan out but here’s another entry that I’m sure everyone is happy about. This one, by Tom Patterson, is a very nicely done map of the Hawaii seafloor. He’s made it available as a downloadable wall map jpeg file so that you can have it printed and put on your wall.
  

An old joke:
Person 1: “I was just thinking…”
Person 2 interrupts, saying: “We don’t have time to waste!”

Anyway, as a blogger I can start out with “I was just thinking” and not have anyone come in with a silly joke, so here goes:

I was just thinking yesterday about client feedback and whether it is to be taken as an insult or as a normal part of business. People feel differently about this issue. I’ve been known to say in the past that working back and forth with a client on design issues such as color choices is a part of doing business in the mapping field.

However, yesterday I tweeted about an article in the Washington Post (via @geofeminina), that quotes a map artist as saying, “I’ve had to occasionally call somebody up after they’ve used a computer program to alter the color or proportions and say, ‘Take my name off of it. That isn’t how I painted it.”

The map artist quoted here is none other than the person who makes most of the ski trail maps around the world. He’s obviously quite an expert at it. My tweet was: “Even the masters have clients who want to change their colors! Insulting.”

So in this particular case I found it insulting. But I also feel that back-and-forth between client and map maker is a perfectly acceptable part of doing business.* Why is there a discrepancy? Is it because this guy is an obvious expert? No, I think that the real reason this was insulting is that his work was altered after he submitted it. Ideally, the client would have asked to change colors before the piece was finished.

Interior designers, architects, and landscape architects will often say things like, “I loved the client for this project, he was decisive and open to suggestion” – which leads us to believe that these fields all expect a collaborative approach to project work rather than a one-sided situation. Map making needs to have the same type of expectation toward collaboration with the client. Furthermore, in one of these other fields, I do think it would be insulting if say, you designed someone’s interior, then they turned around and put in, say some garish focal piece, and then they published it in a magazine along with your name. That just seems sneaky. So there’s the difference that I see between the two situations. What do you think?

*I run my business that way: all client feedback is welcome at all times.