With AI taking over the internet, it’s a struggle to find serious human creativity. Luckily, I’ve created this list to help you out in the map department. Some of these blogs I’ve followed for a long time, while some are recent discoveries. Whether you’re trying to improve your mapmaking skills or just enjoy looking at cool maps, this list will hopefully provide you with some inspiration.
Topi Tjukanov
Topi is a Senior Map Designer at Mapbox and initiated the annual 30 Day Map Challenge back in 2019. His blog combines his love of historic cartography with modern techniques, including AI. He is a huge fan of QGIS, and he pushes the software to its limits with novel 3D visualizations and animated maps, like the one above animating travel time by different modes in Helsinki. His 3D map called “The Barrier Effect” inspired me to create my own version about Seattle.
Atlas Guo – Cartoguophy
Chenxiao “Atlas” Guo is a PhD student in cartography at the highly ranked University of Wisconsin – Madison. His unique and beautiful map designs earned him recognition at the 2024 Esri User Conference, where he won 1st place in Cartography for the map pictured above. He has won many other awards and had his work featured during Esri CEO Jack Dangermond’s plenary speech.
Sarah Bell
If you appreciate the outdoors and hand-drawn maps, Sarah Bell has an excellent portfolio for you! She started her career mapping for the National Park Service and has continued to build on those natural cartography skills. She has even released her own font for maps based on historic USGS topographic maps.
Joshua Stevens
I discovered Joshua Stevens while googling a GIS problem I had and his tutorials and maps pleasantly surprised me with their depth and quality. With a PhD in geography and a job leading data visualization and cartographic quality at NASA’s Earth Observatory, his expertise is more than a fancy resume. Just look at his Mars poster above.
Kenneth Field – Cartoblography
While not as active as it once was, this blog run by longtime Esri cartographer Kenneth Field shares his own maps and other cool maps he finds. He offers a signature British brand of cynicism in his map commentary — imagine Gordon Ramsay yelling at a mapmaker about wrong colors. For more of Kenneth’s map work, check out his posts on the ArcGIS blog or read his book Cartography.
Daniel Huffman – SomethingAboutMaps
One of my favorite blogs, SomethingAboutMaps is an excellent place to learn more about interesting map design techniques and find inspiration. The author, Daniel Huffman, is a freelance cartographer and professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. His works have earned features in many famous magazines. My favorite part of his blog is the focus on the human element involved in any creative endeavor. He is happy to admit and show off his failures on the journey he takes from idea to final map. This style makes the blog easy and fun to read while also justifying all of his design choices.
Tom Patterson – Shaded Relief
Have you ever marveled at the beauty of U.S. National Parks maps? Their creator, Tom Patterson, runs Shaded Relief to share his vast knowledge about cartography. While the tutorials the site may use some old software, their fundamentals are solid and helped me make my map of Nepal’s Langtang National Park. If you have any interest in topographic mapping or mapping natural areas, you must read his articles.
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