I’m in the middle of collecting inspiration pieces for an interactive map design project. This is the sort of thing that is perfect to share in a post, so here is our collection as it stands right now. Please feel free to link to webmaps that you are particularly fond of in the comments as well.

Wall Street Journal, Tracking Nation’s Bank Failures The map itself is straightforward. Likes: the reset map button, the historical slider bar, the way the raw data are integrated and sortable underneath the map.

Guardian Bookstore and Library Map Likes: instead of individual dots for each location, the bookstores are grouped together with the number denoting the number of bookstores; also, the green and tan pick list at left looks pretty good.

Casino Map via Las Vegas Sun Likes: Interesting use of oblique view; north arrow looks decent, gray and dark gray background is nice, simplified buildings with only most identifying details displayed.

Common Ground Country Fair by Maps For Good Likes: nice use of simplified surroundings with strong focal point; there’s a nice pop up window in lower right (not shown here) that gives a bit of information about each location once zoomed in, via hover-over.

Oakland Crime Spotting by Stamen Design Likes: the Open Street Map background looks good; another use of localized grouping of points with number in center of points; simplified, logical color key.

Burning Map by Stamen Design Likes: Uses WebGL to animate with 3d effects, new concept.

Google Street View has added images to its Antarctica collection of historic sites. You can check them out at their World Wonders Project.

Coincidentally, I was just re-reading my copy of Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer last week (at the pool in blazing hot weather, ironically.) The part of the book that hit home to me was that much of Shackleton’s success–in keeping everyone alive under horrific conditions–was due to his ability to cultivate camaraderie among all the crew members. Even between the scientists and the boat crew, who, in regular society would have not been likely to get along given their very different upbringings. It was this camaraderie that not only kept the group alive, but also kept them in good spirits for much of their ill-fated journey.

The Google Street View images are of Scott’s hut and surroundings, but still a great visual to go along with the reading of this book or any of the others detailing those early explorations.

Inspired by Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:

• Repetition is key to learning.
• Don’t be afraid to make a mess. But clean it up at some point.
• No throwing your map, whether it is finished or not.
• If you make up a new way to map or create data, share it.
• You can build on an idea that’s not yours if you modify enough that it becomes yours.
• Take a nap if your first attempts fail. A well-rested mind may be just the ticket.
• If you are still stuck, ask a pal for help.
• Learn from others sometimes, make up your own solutions other times.
• Don’t let the loud-mouths/critics get you down.
• Don’t put things where they don’t go: the spatial accuracy police is omnipotent.
• When you are finally finished and satisfied with the results, go ahead and pat yourself on the back.

Pictorial mapping–using illustration to provide place-recognition–is a niche artform. In pictorial maps, the illustrations take the place of traditional polygons, lines, points, and labels, to give the essence of the locations. Type maps and maps with flourish follow along the same vein. In the two examples shown here, note the balance of heavy, saturated color-fill with white space as well as the successful deployment of a single color (in addition to black and white) while still providing adequate excitement and interest.

These are close-ups of much larger prints available from famille summerbelle.

I haven’t seen something make the rounds of the twittersphere so often as I have this Wind Map over the last two days. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is taking note of this feat of stunning map animation.

The graphic shown below is just a static screen shot. Click the map to load up the actual page. Don’t forget to try zooming in because the animation persists at larger scales too. Bonus points if you can figure out how to get it to zoom back out.

A pair of visualization artists, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg appear to be behind the magic, under the company name HINT.FM.

A cartography company called Stavanger Guide Maps Norway, headed by Kevin-Paul Scarrott, is the genius behind a series of 10 maps that have recently been placed in 10 locations around Stavanger, Norway.

According to Scarrott’s post on CartoTalk: “The idea behind the project is to encourage local citizens and incoming travellers to utilise the maps and information as a gateway for various regional activities and for onward travel. The Cruise ship travellers seem to appreciate the map of the Norwegian coastline, enabling them not only to see where they are heading for, but also where they’ve come from! (it’s one of the oldest travel conundrums: ‘I’ve been there, but I don’t know where it is!’)”

Scarrott’s obviously been very busy since launching Stavanger Maps last year (see my previous post on this here). I’m happy to see that the firm is doing well. I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you to Scarrott for providing some great inspiration.