Strange Maps

How much I'm disappointed in the aftermath that our course on information design in the last year – of all times! – didn't cover the subject «Mapping». Maybe I just shouldn't have visited «Strange Maps», a blog which offers an inspiring collection of – as you may already suspect – maps. This conglomeration contains besides maps as a result of historical or experimental approaches in graphic design also maps as a creation of coincidence. So you'll even find puddles which look like Australia or scurrilities like an Africa-shaped escalope.

The real intersting thing about many of these «Strange Maps» is the semiotic dimension which presents itself to the recipient in the random context of their formation. The graphical examples reveal interesting aspects through historical or informational relations. At large the collection makes a statement about what makes a map a map at all. It allows an diversified insight into the way information and statements can be visualized in and through maps.

The image above shows a drawing of an 11 years old Jewish boy named Fritz Freudenheim who documented the flight of his family from Berlin to Monte Video in 1938. It was shown in an exhibition of the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.