Schematic hometown maps

[rasagy]

Hi everyone,

As discussed in the class, let’s pick our hometowns and create schematic maps for tourists, or a specific use case. You can see some of the schematic maps created previously.

We went through the following references in the class:

Schematic Maps:

Get inspired by the story behind the most seminal schematic map: London Underground Map by Harry Beck, and a critique of the old design along with some interesting alternatives in this TEDx talk on usability of metro maps.

Closer home, have a look at the Isometric & Schematic map of the IIT B by Prof. Mandar Rane.

Here is the process behind one of my schematic maps: Andamanese Language Map.

A Guardian article featuring animations transforming schematic maps into geographically accurate representations.

A great collection of schematic maps of most cities around the world created by INAT, like Delhi & Mumbai.

More references to read through:

Cartography / Map Design: Essays on Digital Cartography by Justin O’Beirne.

David Rumsey’s huge map collection for some vintage cartography inspiration.

The Five Elements for forming a mental model of a city, from Kevin Lynch’s book The Image of the City.

More visual inspiration on my Pinterest board, including some examples from the books You are here & Cartographics that we went through.

Resources: Maki icon set for using quick icons under CC0 license, do try editing them in the Maki Editor if you want to customize them.

[rasagy]

List of topics

1. Tanaya - Pune
2. Roopam - Nagpur
3. Ipsha - Old Jaipur
4. Jitesh - Kolkata
5. Anurag - Kanpur
6. Aishwarya - Lucknow
7. Nikhil - Temples in Alappuzha
8. Shravani - Nashik (Tourist)
9. Sanjay - Kirandul (Mine & elevation)
10. Kanchan - Pune (College hangout)
11. Preeti - Rourkela (Steel plant)
12. Deshna - Chennai (Transit or childhood)
13. Akshay - Ahmedabad or Jodhpur

[DarthElevator]

Map of temples in Alappuzha My affinity for Alappuzha stems from the fact that it is the place where both my parents were raised. Summer vacations were spent in various parts of the district staying at our ancestral house or at the house of myriad relatives. Although I am not religious, a major feature of my childhood was going to temples across the district that my grandmother used to frequent. I used to tag along on these trips since there was nothing better to do and I got to travel in the family jeep. The fact that these trips formed an indelible memory of my childhood is primarily the reason why I wanted to make a schematic map of the temples in Alappuzha. I started out by drawing my mental model of what the district of Alappuzha looks like: ie a blind map/rough sketch.

Not surprisingly this version was way off the mark. Then tried to make an accurate outline of the actual map. For this I used the district map of Kerala as a reference, then I cross-referenced with google maps to put the locations. The purpose of this attempt was not really to draw an accurate representation but to get an intuitive sense of what the district looks like in outline, especially since I was way off the mark in relation to the actual map.

This is my rough outline (practice attempt).

This is the same with major water bodies marked.

This is the map of Alappuzha district with the Outer Boundaries clearly marked

Since the purpose of this schematic map is to trace the temples in Alappuzha district, I figured out the routes between various temples by using Google maps. The Mookambika temple has been excluded because it lies outside the jurisdictional boundaries of the district even though it has significant tourist footfalls from those visiting Alappuzha. Therefore it has been included. The Vembanad lake system has been excluded though because it lies outside the jurisdiction, although it again has massive tourist inflows from Alappuzha.

I traced out the map

I included the following elements a) Major roads that connect the temples b) Major water bodies c) Topographical information like whether it is solid land or wetland

After some amount of form simplification, I went with this schema as it not only mimics the outer boundaries of the district but also looks like a temple from a distance. Schematic Map

This slightly modified version reflects the coastline and has somewhat better visual balance I believe.

Feedback from Rasagy

1. The legend would perhaps be better served by taking out a qualitative scale and using buckets and numbers for it to work better
2. The coastline ovelap makes it look like some part of it is floating
3. The distinction between wetland and dry land needs to be clearer
4. The roads need to be slightly more subtle

This is the map after incorporating the feedback

This is the version incorporating the feedback in round 2 from Chakradhar Sir and Rasagy. The feedback was as follows. I have used the temple metaphor as viewed from a flat 2D perspective 1) The roads need to be softer, they are screaming for attention right now 2) The location circles need to be centered 3) Follow consistent use of shapes, use softer rounded edges everywhere 4) The top triangular edge needs to be softer as it mimics the visual of a British house

This is another version that incorporates the Vembanad backwater system.

[okshyeah-nid]

Ahmedabad

World Heritage City

I'll be exploring the tourist places in Ahmedabad, given its status of World Heritage City. Combine that with the city of Gandhinagar.

Blind sketch

Actual map of Ahmedabad

Based on

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WIP

1

Based on the metaphor of a Charkha , the cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar are simplified into concentric circles

2

Radial roads within the citied and roads connecting the two cities were marked. The orientation is rotated, West pointing upwards, to suit the metaphor of Charkha

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Final map

[RoopamSonpethkar]

Blind map :

Schematic map : I intend to make a tourist map for Nagpur city

Traced map of Nagpur : Abstraction : First Iteration :

[anurag24395sachan]

Schematic Map

I decided to make a schematic map of 'Notable Places in Kanpur'

• To have an idea of how the city is in my mind, I started with the Blind Map of Kanpur

Actual Map of Kanpur -

To start with Schematic mapping Started by tracing the roads and outer boundary

Removed the reference image and simplified the paths

Further Simplification of the shape

Simlification of roads by keeping all the lines vertical, horizontal and at 45 degree

Removed unnecessary details

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• After a discussion with Rasagy, instead of making a schematic map of the whole Kanpur city, I narrowed down the previous idea and decided to show the Educational Institutes in Kanpur. (Started again by plotting the location in Google maps)

Could identify some semi-circular pattern by simplifying the shapes

Created the basic shape by putting a circular grid on the background and mapped the places that I wanted to put on the map(Black circles)

Added the area of every place(Educational Institute) shown on the map

Did the basic coloring and started adding more details

Changed the shape of the river according to the circular grid, Started putting the data on the map and changed the overall color schemes(Multiple Iterations).

Final Map

After making some final changes in color and font sizes according to the hierarchy, Final map looks like as following: (Click to Zoom In)

[shrav13]

I started off by drawing a blind map of Nashik city. Here, I've dotted one area which I want to highlight.

Next, I traced out the actual map of the city with all it's important roads and connections to other cities.

I intend on showing one major area in Nashik - Panchavati which has a rich mythological significance in Ramayana. So I zoomed into that area and again traced the map. I located the important places on the map w.r.t. Ramayan and marked them as well.

Here on I started simplifying the the map. Panchavati is named after the 5 Banyan trees in that area. I took the name as my inspiration and tried to give the map the form of a banyan leaf.

When the form was final, I digitized it.

The current version looks like this:

[AishwaryaAnandSingh]

Lucknow: Places Lucknow is famous for-Heritage sites and food And their Location and navigation from my house

Blind map of famous places in Lucknow with routes to airport and train station

Area of Lucknow being covered

Actual on map location of famous places with routes to airport and train station

Simplified iteration with metro line in yellow and famous places in blue

Next Iteration:

Next Iteration:

Final

[Ipsha13]

https://jaipurbeat.com/2016/09/24/7-gates-of-jaipur-that-have-a-story-to-tell/

WORK IN PROGRESS

Pink City in Jaipur City

[kanchanrpathak]

How I perceive Pune

Map of Pune

[sankson]

Kirandul: Mining and settlements

Actual map

[preetigiri]

Blind Map of Rourkela: How I perceive my place

Actual Map of Rourkela

2nd round iteration

[Tanaya01]

Nightlife in Pune

Pune has attracted a lot of young crowd because of the educational opportunities it offers. A large part of the city's population is students, so there's a vibrant nightlife. This map shows the areas with the most happening places in the town. It is drawn solely based on my memory. It is my perception of the city and not an accurate scale representation.

Blind Map of Pune

After making the blind map. I looked at the google map and OSM of Pune. I started by tracing out the outline of the city. In the first attempt, I used straight lines to simplify the form. I got a geometric polygon like form but it wasn't simpler to understand ( I didn't really abstract the organic form and retained lots of details from the original)

After this, I decided to go back to the original map and looked at its zoomed-out view.

To simplify it, I could have turned it into a rectangle, but it seemed like an easy way out, therefore I started exploring other forms within the organic shape.

I got a flower-like shape, I kept working on it and after a few iterations, I achieved a butterfly-like form.

This seemed more in sync with the theme of my map (Nightlife in Pune) as the form of butterfly can be associated with the term 'Social Butterfly'.

Final Design