A veteran cartographer by the name of David Imus has just published a beautiful map of the United States, painstaking created by hand using dozes of visual rules and guidelines to create what might be the most pleasing and elegant map of the country ever made. It didn’t come without a cost tho:
By contrast, David Imus worked alone on his map seven days a week for two full years. Nearly 6,000 hours in total. It would be prohibitively expensive just to outsource that much work. But Imus—a 35-year veteran of cartography who’s designed every kind of map for every kind of client—did it all by himself. He used a computer (not a pencil and paper), but absolutely nothing was left to computer-assisted happenstance. Imus spent eons tweaking label positions. Slaving over font types, kerning, letter thicknesses. Scrutinizing levels of blackness. It’s the kind of personal cartographic touch you might only find these days on the hand-illustrated ski-trail maps available at posh mountain resorts.
Beautiful job. But, how about this one? I purchased the National Geographic Society’s “Everest World Globe” for more than $5,000. It is a grand affair map on a glass globe made in Germany. And, it sits in a beautifully finished wood base/surround-stand, waist high. Around the perimeter of the wood surround are the months of the year inlaid in mother of pearl. Also inlaid are the four directions: N, S, E, and W. The globe is correctly tilted on its axis.
One day my brother was studying the globe when he noticed that both the summer solstice and winter solstice points were set wrong. Hard to believe, but, they are set at April and October.
By coincidence, I had a friend who worked at the National Geographic and I called to tell her of the amazing error. She in turn had the Chief of the Cartography Section call me. The fellow began by telling me that he had no record of my owning an “Everest Globe”. When I told him the name on the order, the conversation continued.
After explaining the error to the fellow, there was a stunned silence on the phone. When he regained his composure his mind went into high gear, telling me that the inlays were just historical representations and had nothing to do with actual references.
I ended the conversation by telling the fellow that I understand that the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice were just old ideas and not to be taken as facts.
Also, that I did not want the globe corrected as I considered it to be a Collector’s Item of great value.
Imagine, I have a major offering of The National Geographic Society that can not align the tilt of the earth to June and December. Best of all, The Society denies that such an artifact even exists.