My Life in Maps

In honor of my Skillshare Map Making class that starts tomorrow I thought I’d take today to put together a special post. I’ve been overjoyed by the outpouring of support around the internet, and at time of writing this post I already had more than 350 students – bloggers, photographers, illustrators, designers, community managers, magazine contributors, and genuinely awesome people – from 21 countries, on all 5 continents! While class doesn’t officially start until Tuesday, the energy in the online classroom is contagious, and it’s been amazing learning about my students + the fantastic maps they have planned. Also, as a final reminder, I know what it’s like to juggle a lot of things in life, so I kept busy/real lives in mind when designing the class. The lectures are broken up into small segments that you can watch when you have time, and the even when the class is over you’ll still have access. (It took Ashley + I two months to finish our video for another Skillshare class we took!).

I was lucky to grow up in a well traveled family, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved maps. Our house was littered with old issues of National Geographic, and each issue always came with a map, and smaller maps were always used to tell the story of the place. In 8th grade, my World Geography teacher gave us a test once where we had to draw the world from memory. There was a giant map in the front of the class for reference, but going up to look at it took away time from us and our piece of blank paper (we had to include details of many kinds: 1 isthmus, 1 mountain, 1 capital, etc.). It was intense, but also the best – and most memorable – test I ever took. Then for extra credit when days we finished ahead of schedule he’d toss around an inflatable globe that we’d toss around until someone had it and our teacher would name a super unknown place and we’d have 2 minutes to find it. Needless to say, I’d go home and study the globe most nights in preparation for my turn. Now, when I go home to visit my parents I still turn to my dad for a trusty hand drawn map rather than opting for GPS.

{Map above: My life in maps depicts everywhere I’ve lived up until now. It’s funny to see there are a few reoccurring places. Click to enlarge.}

I am by no means an artist/painter, and this map of “Places I’ve Been” is a bit outdated now (I have been to 30+ countries), but I made it as part of a map workshop at MICA several years ago. It was the perfect excuse to try something new. In terms of my favorite travel places, you can find many of them mapped on Everplaces.

I first discovered this paper globe thanks to Judith aka Joelix.com. You can download your own “Le Paper Globe” by Joachim Robert. (Note, it took me ~3 hours but was a fun distraction from the computer and a nice hands-on project). I then used paint dabs to chart our 2001 voyage around the world on Semester at Sea. (Our route was Bahamas, Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius, India, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Seattle!). To top it off I made a 6 second Vine on my phone that you see above (it’s even better with the sound on!).

If you read my blog, chances are you’ve seen this map several times now. I made it as part of my ‘Tour de France: Paris‘ series where I invited local bloggers to show us their arrondissement (district). For each individual post I colored the specific arrondissement.

I also love hand drawn + imperfect maps. One night at a party I was talking with a Spanish friend who has lived in Paris for 4 years, but said he didn’t really understand the city. So, I drew him a map from memory. The next day I compared it to a real map – some areas in the east of Paris were a bit off, but overall, I got my point across: Paris is a snail divided into 20 districts.

Afficher We Are Here – Skillshare Map Making sur une carte plus grande

Finally, this is an updated version of the interactive map from when I first posted it, depicting all the places the students in my class live around the world. Isn’t online learning awesome!?! (There would be even more dots if it included the wide range of places people are from).

Oh, and I’ve decided this should be the theme song for my class!
SIGN UP TO MAKE MAPS HERE!

P.S. New BOARDING PASS later this week!

We Are Here


View We Are Here – Skillshare Map Making in a larger map

One of the perks of online learning is that the classroom is open to anyone in the world. Every day gets more and more exciting as people sign up for my Skillshare Map Making class. There are already 75 students signed up and class doesn’t even start until the 18th (I’m dreaming 500+). Not everyone has filled in their profiles yet, but I think it’s pretty amazing to already have 11 countries represented in the class, and multiple students + cities in most places too. So I decided to start a Google map to mark where everyone is from (ahem, I see a couple continents that still need representatives!). Sure this class is about making maps – I know people have projects planned to sell in their Etsy shop, to give to guests in their home, to remember their favorite trip to Rome, and more – but it’s also about the people you’ll meet and interact with in the online classroom (and hopefully in Google Hangouts too). So far we have graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, bloggers, community managers, magazine contributors, and non-creative-but-still-awesome types, and I couldn’t be more excited to see what people come up with. Just think about all the cool places we’ll be discovering in the process. I’ll be sharing some of my favorites on PAV, but I hope you’ll consider joining us!

You can sign up HERE, or read more about the class on PAV here. I’ve even made a widget if you want to share it on your blog and spread the word. Just save the image below and add the link: http://skl.sh/S3wqIa

I’m Teaching Maps on Skillshare!

Since the beginning this site has always been about the intersection of travel + design and I’m excited to announce another direction I’m taking this idea. For the past couple months I’ve been talking to Skillshare – an awesome platform for taking online (and sometimes in person) classes. They essentially gave me the guidelines to come up with my dream class, and so that’s what I did.

My class is called Map Design: Learn to Communicate Places Beautifully. I was inspired by my own way of travel where I don’t want to carry around a bulky guidebook, I like to see things on a map (in the past I have walked crazy distances having no clue places were not close at all), and getting advice from local experts. I designed the map of the Canal St. Martin area of Paris as just one of a million possibilities of what you could create in this class. (Computer + design skills NOT required!!).

So here’s how it works:

  1. You sign up! (All Skillshare classes are totally affordable!)
  2. This class is perfect if you want to chart your latest travels, are planning a wedding/event and need a map, host guests in your home a lot, or just love your own neighborhood and want to map it. It’s open to all levels, ages and stages. Enthusiasm + eagerness to learn will get you far!
  3. The class is structured into 3 units:  Hand Drawn Maps + Concepting, Mapping in the Digital Age + Alternative Guides, and Office Hours (Q&A and Google Hangouts with me + your classmates).
  4. Knowing people have really busy lives, I’ve structured it so that both of the lectures come early in the 3 week online class. They’ll be pre-recorded and you can watch them whenever you have a chance. That gives you more time to work on your final project: a travel/map of the place + theme of your choosing.
  5. Both of the main lectures will have mini exercises to help get you thinking about mapping in a new way. They are designed to encourage you to disconnect from your computer, and realize that even great maps can be imperfect. You share your work with your classmates along the way, which is an awesome way to get you thinking about all the different ways you can approach the same design challenge.
  6. Work on your final projects, which can be print or digital. During the lectures I’ll share tons of examples, talk about format, and give you ideas so you can create your own map(s) for however you want it. And if there’s anything you still have questions about, you can just ask. It’s a highly collaborative environment and your classmates are awesome resources too.
  7. All while you’re learning you’re interacting and checking in with the progress of your classmates. You can create “groups” too for people working on projects similar to yours. I’ve taken a couple classes through Skillshare now and have even made some great professional contacts. There some awesome people around you, so make the most of it!
  8. Awards! As part of the incentive to stay on task, the top 10 maps created in class will be shared on Prêt à Voyager! I’m trying to cook up some other awesome rewards, but you’ll just have to sign up to see where that goes.
  9. Even if your life gets kind of hectic during the time of the class, you’ll still have access to the information even after the technical last day of class. The idea too is the skills + resources you pick up in this class will stick with you and you can apply to any future projects or maps.
  10. More info on the class here.

I’ve taken a handful of Skillshare classes now and I find they’re the perfect excuse to actually DO the projects I’ve been thinking about for ages. If you want to to sign up for my class you can do it here. Skillshare has TONS of awesome classes you should check out regardless – anything from logo design to designing web apps to food photography or how to make the perfect meatball, and with some of the coolest teachers around! Check out all the Skillshare classes here! (And they’re constantly adding new ones).

Any questions? Just leave them in the comments below, or tweet me @pretavoyager!

UPDATE: I’ve created a Google map of all the students signed up here. More than 10 countries around the world + counting!

P.S. Look at the map in this post for 10 seconds + tell me what you see :)

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