Laundry Islands National Park

From the archives (March 2005):

One of my childhood fascinations was maps. I loved atlases. Road maps. Park maps (like this one). Topographical maps. Maps from National Geographic. Those 3D relief maps at museums. Even now, give me a map and I'll read it like a book. And like any other printed medium, there are well-designed and poorly-designed maps, the good (like the classic London Underground map) and the ugly (like a lot of state highway maps). And I would spend hours of my childhood drawing them.

So last year I tried it again, but with some obvious technological advances. These islands are based on clothes scattered on the bedroom floor. The island at far left is a short-sleeved shirt. The main one is a pair of pants (still recognizable if you look close), underwear and a hoodie. There's a pair of socks off the southern coast. Place names were taken from Manitoba's highway map. I sketched the outline of the clothes and rendered the tabloid-sized map in FreeHand. Topography was then added in Photoshop from a scan of crumpled paper. You can click here for the full backstory.