[click image to enlarge]

As most of you already know, I teach a map making class on Skillshare. Once you sign up you have lifetime access, and you can sign up any time. But because there are no official deadlines sometimes it can be a bit harder to motivate. Welcome project challenges! From time to time I’ll be adding extra incentive to work on your projects, and also win some cool stuff. The first challenge is to create a postcard-sized 4×6″ map of your favorite neighborhood. The winner will not only win printed postcards of their map, but they’ll also get a 30 min consultation with me (probably via Skype) to help finalize the map and prep the file, as well as a copy of A Map of the World According to Illustrators and Storytellers courtesy of Gestalten publishers! If you haven’t seen this book yet, I posted about it here. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The deadline to submit your map is Nov 18th!

Just because I’m the teacher doesn’t mean I’m immune to the project challenges either! In fact, this challenge was the perfect excuse to work on a map of the 9th arrondissement of Paris [top image] that I have been dreaming of working on for over a year now. (Turns out all I needed was one morning to focus on it to pull it together). I really enjoyed working on it and it was strange to get to know my old neighborhood through the streets – I hadn’t thought of how it all fits together before. I also like that it’s the perfect way to celebrate so many of my favorite local shops. I even got to use some new skills I learned in Brad Woodard’s Illustrator Skillshare course. Of course, I designed this map to be a printed postcard so it doesn’t display as well as it should on the screen (smaller text is far more successful in print than on screen, but now that I have a retina screen I’m having issues with saving it so it looks best – I recommend clicking to enlarge for now). Now I can’t wait to get this map printed and start handing it out on my Vayable Design Tour of Paris!

If you want to sign up to make some maps, just click here. Oh, and the code YOUROCK will get you $10 off :)

To learn more about how I got into teaching on Skillshare and how it works, you can read my Teacher Stories interview on the Skillshare blog.

P.S. In other exciting news, Joanna Goddard gave “Unglamorous Paris” a shot out on Cup of Jo yesterday. It inspired her to do the same for New York!