Update, Dec. 22: A few variations of the map technique are posted here.

We spent some of our spare time last week exploring data from the 2008 presidential election and thinking of some interesting ways to visualize it. Above is one map we put together.

One thing we sought to do was present an alternative to cartograms, which are becoming increasingly popular as post-election maps. Cartograms are typically offered as an alternative to the common red and blue maps showing which states or counties were won by each candidate, wherein one color (presently, red) dominates the map because of the more expansive—but less populated—area won by one candidate. Election cartograms such as the popular set by Mark Newman distort areas to reflect population and give a more accurate picture of the actual distribution of votes. A drawback of cartograms that we’re very aware of, however, is that in distorting sizes, shapes and positions are necessarily distorted, sometimes to the point of making the geography virtually unrecognizable.

Our map is one suggestion of a different way to weight election results on the map while maintaining correct geography. What we’ve done is start with a simple red and blue map showing which candidate (Republican and Democrat, respectively) won each county in the lower 48 states. Then, to account for the population of those counties (or, the approximate distribution of votes), we’ve adjusted opacity. High-population counties are fully opaque while those with the lowest population are nearly invisible. Against the black background, the highest concentrations of votes stand out as the brightest.

We’ll let viewers be the judge of its cartographic effectiveness, but we hope you’ll at least agree that it looks pretty cool!

Click on the image at the top of the post to view a larger version, or see it in a Zoomify viewer, or download the full size (suitable for printing).

I love ColorBrewer. All of us here at Axis rely on it almost daily and it’s helped us to make nice looking maps quickly; and that’s what good tools do, they make their users look really good at their jobs.

7+ years later, ColorBrewer is due for some changes and Cindy Brewer has been kind enough to ask us to hold the scalpel. Nothing major. Same great color schemes (of course), but a new interface and some new functionality to help ColorBrewer’s 2000 visitors per week get the most out of the experience.

We’re in the early stages of planning this project but we though we would open this up for some discussion amongst the ColorBrewer-using, Axis Maps Blog-reading masses.

QUESTION: What would you like to see in the new version? What should remain untouched? What do you love? What do you wish was done better?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

This is an exciting time to be a cartographer. Cartography has changed more in the past 5 years than in the previous 50, and the field is in the midst of an unprecedented revolution that has forever altered what maps can do, and how and why we use maps. How far have we come? I now see teenagers using on-demand, customizable maps rendered in real time from multiple, distributed data sources on their cell phones that automatically geotag and upload photos to their blogs while they sit on the bus. Five years ago, heck, one year ago this would have been science fiction, now it’s just a collection of geoservices on a $200 phone. As a result, mapping technology has quickly outpaced mapping theory and practice.

While much attention has (rightly) been focused on the technology that is enabling these amazing advances  (Google Earth, mash-ups), I think the equally significant change is why people are making maps and the role maps now play in our everyday lives.

Take “pocketcasting” for example, the next step in social networking, where folks geo-broadcast their locations so they can see where their friends are at any given moment allowing unplanned meetings (“I’m at this cafe!” as a kind of mass, voluntary, geo-voyeurism). This adds a degree of instantaneous spatial awareness to our social lives that would have been impossible without the serendipitous convergence of technologies like GPS, wireless networks, and customizable on-demand maps. Other new ways the public is using maps include monitoring traffic conditions in real-time or using Google’s wonderful streetview to check-out a potential new home virtually. One thing is clear: Maps have become fully integrated into the fabric of our lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

Beyond the popularity of these maps, however, has been the complete blurring of the distinctions between map maker and map reader, data provider and data user. It is precisely this tectonic shift in the world of cartography that underlies the philosophy of GeoCommons Maker!, the product we’ve been jointly developing with the powerhouse team at FortiusOne, described by the O’Reilly Radar as “a Flickr/Swivel/YouTube/Scribd of geodata.” Maker is at the vanguard of the democratization of cartography and the promise of Web 2.0 services that eliminate the need for expensive software/data for most casual ‘citizen cartographers’ and allows people to make great looking maps quickly while guiding them through the process. We here at Axis Maps feel strongly that powerful tools (e.g., desktop GIS) aren’t much good if they don’t provide guidance – it’s like giving the keys of an F-16 to someone who doesn’t know how to fly. Furthermore, while an F-16 is amazing, few folks actually need one. Same with $30,000 mapping software.

One of the reasons we like Maker! is that it empowers people – who otherwise would never be able to participate – to make their own maps and start publishing, sharing, and commenting on geographic data and the things we learn from those data. High-end, professional cartography is not going to disappear, and the world will always need premium map products (such as National Geographic Atlases or legally-binding land surveys). The same is true of professional authors and photographers; neither blogging nor Flickr have eliminated the need for these professionals, rather they have opened up these activities to a much larger group and drawn people into the process, rather than relegate them merely to being spectators to the process.

One thing is clear: As the GeoWeb/Web2.0 revolution continues, we need to move beyond paper map thinking and starting seeing maps much more broadly as services that can be integrated with other services. As a professional cartographer this means to me that the “rules” of cartography established through a century of study and practice are now up for grabs at the very moment mapping finds itself in a multi-billion dollar spotlight from both the private and public sectors. Some of the biggest companies in the world (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!) are betting a big chunk of their digital future on maps and the central role they want cartography to play in their digital empires. With the backing of these companies, digital, on-demand maps have gone from technological curiosities to everyday tools worth billions of dollars. This begs the question: Where is mapping headed and what might our maps do for us in 10 years?

Further questions we need to think carefully about (these are the sorts of questions that keep us up at night!!)…

• How much of what we have learned about static maps—both in practice and theory—holds true when these maps become animated, interactive, and customizable?
• What are the relative merits of 2D versus 3D?
• How do we keep users from becoming disoriented and lost in 3D immersive maps?
• What are the perceptual limits of animation and for what kinds of map reading tasks (e.g., rate estimation, change detection) are animated maps especially well-suited (and how could those tasks be better supported)?
• How can we reduce the problem of “split attention” in immersive and visually-rich environments like Google Earth?
• How can we create intelligent Web-based software that is both easy to use and powerful? To what degree can the map-design process be automated to further the democratization of map-making? How can we help novices to think like experts?
• What should our map interfaces look like and why? How does the map interface structure the user’s experience? How do we know if our map interfaces work?
• Who benefits from these billions being invested in mapping?
• How does this technology change the way we do business and the way we interact with each other?
• What are the limitations and liabilities of decentralized data structures and technologies that run on volunteered geographic data?