Hand labelled map

[Mouse]

We are all so used to adding text using some very powerful software tools - tools that can curve the text, tilt it, make it three dimensional, colour it spectacularly, drop shadows from it, turn it inside out and upside down. There are an amazing number of fonts to chose from as well, so if you don't mind spending hours and hours looking at all the font sites you can have any kind of text you like, but....

There can often be something missing from a map where the text is so mechanical and always perfect.

I would like to draw a map and try adding all the labels by hand - just to learn something from people who can do it better than me, by all of us (who want to do it) doing it at the same time in a challenge, perhaps.

Since the map would be all about labelling things, then we'd better make it a dungeon, a single level of a building, or a very small hamlet map - something with the potential for as many labels as possible. The challenge won't just be about the best handwriting, but about the choices made as to what to label, and the placement of those labels.

I realise that unless you have a tablet, and can label things by hand using the tablet, this could be a non-starter for quite a few people who have never drawn a map on paper and uploaded a scan or a photograph of it to the Guild, but nevertheless I think that drawing the labels is a skill that almost as important as being able to draw a decent mountain or a tree, and worthy of equal consideration.

This idea was inspired by Jo's Village of Llewyn map. I happen to like the hand labelling on that map - especially the charming way the names of the buildings are curled almost protectively around them, but that is just my taste

Anyone else want to have a go at this with me?

[Falconius]

I think this is a very interesting line of thought, but perhaps needs a little more development. Or maybe not. It could be a good proposal just as is...

For instance what about the map to be labeled? Should that be made during the challenge? Should it be made off a template? Or should it be a specific unlabeled map that everyone gets?

But I was think more about the "Hand-labeling" aspect, maybe make it "Designer labels" where the goal is to approach labeling in an interesting/experimental way, like making swirly labels or making the map entirely from labels etc.?

[Mouse]

Here's one that will fry your brain

[jbgibson]

So who says a large scale map offers more opportunity for labeling?


I forget what that’s a fragment of, but it’s probably five percent of a 1700s-era atlas map - something I’d like to try. I have found a FEW examples with cruder lettering than that, so my rusty calligraphy might suffice.