Wednesday 15 June 2011

Harry Beck Influences the Rivers

I thought I'd blogged about Harry Beck the other month but apparently not. Harry Beck was the innovation behind the 1930s revolutionary overhaul of the London Tube Map. Before his cartographic inspiration the map was a chaotic mish-mash (as opposed to 'mash up') of geographically correct lines. But, for this purpose, geographically precise mapping was not needed - clarity was. Anyway, after reading the fascinating (in my geeky eyes) book I was interested to come across an article by Daniel Huffman, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has taken Harry's concepts on board with respect to rivers. I'd best not blog any of his images here as they aren't my copyright, but follow the link to see what I'm talking about.

And on a different, but of course geospatially related, subject, I came across some pod casts from the Pennsylvania State University today about how geographical information is used throughout the world. I was very taken by this one from Kenya. Towards the end of the video you see them mapping rape crime and then posting watch-keepers at the 'hotspots'. Golly, what a difference.

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