Map Arts: Telling Your Story

The Making of 'The Footprint of Denmark'

Abstract

The article is based on Geoinfo's posters, which have been made every year since 2021. The first draft of the posters was called: "The Footprint of Denmark" and was based on the GeoDanmark dataset. The purpose was to print the maps into posters that could be taken to conferences like the Danish Kortdage.

The expression in the posters itself was to be simple and show a colored background with a dataset that would record Danish geography with data in the form of lines, points or polygons. The posters were to reflect trends in society or draw inspiration from new datasets.

As Mark Monimor (2018) describes in the book: "How to Lie With Maps", a map can tell many different stories about the data the map shows, and our decisions - conscious or unconscious - as cartographers are therefore crucial to the map's message.

Since the posters were first created in 2021, new posters have been made every year that show different geodata, and thus tell different stories. Over the years, there have been many considerations and experiences with the development of the posters - both in relation to cartography, data visualization, and professional integrity - and these are the considerations and experiences that this article delves into.