Cigarette Card Maps

Cigarette manufacturers began including cards in their packages in the mid to late 1800's. Issuing cards in a series enticed buyers to stick with the same brand. The cards showed popular actors, sports figures, animals, plants and a host of other subjects including maps.

The New York Public Library has a large collection of these cards viewable from their Digital Gallery.

Churchman's Cigarettes produced a "How to Make a Map" series for boy scouts. Here are some of their cards with the text that appears on the back.

 "Scouts should first practice observation, and notice all the landmarks (such as hills, churches, trees, rocks, gates and bridges), so that, if necessary, they may draw an accurate map of the surrounding country. The four points of the compass should always be put in, and it is a very great convenience when a map can be, as nearly as possible, drawn to scale."

"It is a difficult matter for a scout to accurately draw a map of water, This, however needs only a little practice and a perfect knowledge of the different signs agreed upon to represent the different boats. The specimen given at the recto is a very good one, showing a very complete map of a village in the vicinity of water. The letters P. T. signify that the village possesses both post and telegraph office."

Gallagher, LTD also issued a "How to Make a Map" card. Here is the front and back of the card.

Map Reading Class was also a card subject.

Some cards depicted airline routes. Here is the route from England to South Africa.

 

Finally, a "Map of London and the Home Counties" was cut into pieces to be collected and reassembled. Here are two matching pieces.

Map of the Week-More Underground Fun

Last year I posted the Music Underground Map. Since then I have come across quite a few Harry Beck inspired alternative views of London. Here are some examples.

First, a map of London's waterways using a Beck-like design.

The map is from British Waterways although it does not seem to be available on their web site. I found it in this Guardian photo gallery.

For tourists, here is the Ultimate Uncluttered Tube Map.

This map shows where to find the nearest toilet on the subway system. No station names or any other text, just the toilets!

Similar to the waterways map is a Beck-like map of Great Britain's Motorway system. Here is a detail of the London area.

A web site called "Birmingham: It's not Shit" has a map of the Birmingham bus system based on Simon Patterson's Great Bear map. The Great Bear map named the Underground stations for famous people and categorized the lines by scientists, comedians, saints, philosophers, etc. The Birmingham version is called the Great Bull (named for the Bull Ring commercial district) and the stations are named for Brummies (people from or associated with Birmingham.) Birmingham is located at the upper left of the motorway detail map where the gray line meets the purple - unfortunately the name got chopped off when I edited the photo.
Here is a detail from the Great Bull map and legend.

The 2012 Olympics are coming to London. Here, the Tube Map is redesigned as the Olympic rings.

Finally, I leave you with this "distinctive interpretation" from artist David Shrigley.

Map of the Week- Global Warming

It's snowing here in the northeastern USA so clearly global warming is a hoax! While climate change skeptics and their corporate sponsors continue to bury their heads in the sand, real scientists are gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. One of the primary goals is to try and limit the rise in temperatures. Britain's Met Office warned of a possible 4 degree Celsius rise in temperatures by 2060 in a study produced for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The British government has produced an interactive map showing the impact of a 4C rise in global temperatures.

The circles represent hotspots for the categories listed at the bottom and can be turned on and off as well as clicked for more info.

Down at the bottom is a "credits" tab if you wish to investigate the data sources more closely.

Map of the Week-Strolling Baby Through Weird Alternate Realities

Here's a delightfully odd marketing strategy. Bugaboo strollers (right) has enlisted some avant-garde artists to make a series of day trip maps for cities in Europe, North America and Australia. They have points of interest you can click on to get more info. Apparently "third world" places such as Asia, Africa and Philadelphia don't rate with them.

One of the more interesting ones is Mina Monnee's Portland. I especially like how she wrapped the river around it.



I also like Prague by Dustin Arnold.

Robert Nakata has some of the most "artistic". Here are his renderings of Toronto and Brighton (England)

Map of the Week-Britain Travel Time Maps

My Society has produced some nice travel time maps for Great Britain that you can see here. I particularly like this one comparing travel time by car and train from Cambridge. The red areas are quicker by train, orange is about the same and then yellow to green to blue gets gradually faster by car.

A couple of disclaimers about this map from their site:
"the road travel model takes no account of traffic or urban areas, so it is pessimistic about the time saving"
"However, the model of car journey times is very simplistic, so these results should not be taken too seriously—we hope to extend the work with a more realistic model of driving times, which may substantially change the comparative results."

Map of the Week 123-Happy May Day!

Folks these days just don't seem to know how to have fun on May Day like we did back in 2001.


Back then in London we rode our bikes wearing fluorescent wigs, gave Winston Churchill a "mohican-style haircut", illegally fed pigeons, and carried signs saying "overthrow capitalism and replace it with something nice." Nowadays we have Bank Holidays , Mayoral elections and Beardyman. Bloody drab mates! And not even a good map of the events.

Maybe you should just go to Ickwell and dance around the maypole.


Here in the USA there will be lots of marches but not a whole lot of good maps. I found some maps showing road closures courtesy of the Los Angeles Dept of Transportation and that's about all. So try to enjoy your May Day despite the dearth of good maps.

MOTW #88

From the Daily Mail - Research shows that almost 50 per cent of Britain's drivers - an astonishing 15 million - are unable to identify simple map symbols and that about 11million admit they "cannot read a basic road map". Then again if you scroll down and look at the Ordnance Survey's map symbols you may have trouble with them too. You didn't know the green box was mud? PC? Must be a Brit thing.