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A PHYSICAL ATLAS
OF THE WORLD

Bill Rankin, 2006

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An exercise in nudging the school atlas out from its nineteenth-century carapace. The distinction between “general” and “thematic” maps has been banished, and simplification is no longer a viable strategy for legibility. And why allow our maps to be cluttered with so many place names, now that we can find the location of even the smallest hamlet using the web?

The paper version of this project has been tabled for the time being. But perhaps it will be revived once I have a spare year or two and a full-time staff of graphic designers, fact-checkers, and publicists.