Dave Noonan here--I'll take a look at the PDF, Hussar. If I remember right, we updated the PDF shortly after release, because the original was (no surprise) set up for an actual printing press.
I bet you've got the updated version, though, so I'll take a look at the files this weekend to see whether it can be optimized further. (Spoiler alert: I bet it can. Adobe Creative Suite doesn't lack for options.)
I appreciate the overall rant, by the way. The "it looks like a textbook" critique isn't far off the mark. Like Rich said, I fell in love with National Geographic maps at a young age, and most of my cartographic approach is borrowed straight from those big maps they used to insert in the monthly magazine. The blue ocean? Straight up National Geographic. The width and color of the rivers? Nat Geo. Point size for the labels? Same deal.
I totally get that it isn't for everyone. Really, the Thule map is a response to my own two map rants:
1) Many RPG maps don't have nearly enough information density, both as measured in labels and as measured in detail. When you see several square inches of undifferentiated space on a map, the cartographer is essentially telling you "nothing to see here." And that's so rarely true! Look at a map of the Sahara or Greenland, and there's all kinds of cool stuff out there. And those cartographers are constrained by bogus concepts like "accuracy" and "things that are actually there."
2) Related: When there are useful details, they're often buried under a layer of oversaturated color or straight-up Photoshop texture nonsense...or done in a poorly kerned mock-handwriting font that someone thought was "fantasy looking." If I can't access the details, probably in the middle of a game, the details might as well not exist.
The Thule map was a labor of love (oh, those fjords!), and I'm eager to take on another map project, whether on Thule or somewhere else. And when that happens, I might even fiddle with the palette a bit. I've been looking at nautical charts a lot lately...
--Dave.
I bet you've got the updated version, though, so I'll take a look at the files this weekend to see whether it can be optimized further. (Spoiler alert: I bet it can. Adobe Creative Suite doesn't lack for options.)
I appreciate the overall rant, by the way. The "it looks like a textbook" critique isn't far off the mark. Like Rich said, I fell in love with National Geographic maps at a young age, and most of my cartographic approach is borrowed straight from those big maps they used to insert in the monthly magazine. The blue ocean? Straight up National Geographic. The width and color of the rivers? Nat Geo. Point size for the labels? Same deal.
I totally get that it isn't for everyone. Really, the Thule map is a response to my own two map rants:
1) Many RPG maps don't have nearly enough information density, both as measured in labels and as measured in detail. When you see several square inches of undifferentiated space on a map, the cartographer is essentially telling you "nothing to see here." And that's so rarely true! Look at a map of the Sahara or Greenland, and there's all kinds of cool stuff out there. And those cartographers are constrained by bogus concepts like "accuracy" and "things that are actually there."
2) Related: When there are useful details, they're often buried under a layer of oversaturated color or straight-up Photoshop texture nonsense...or done in a poorly kerned mock-handwriting font that someone thought was "fantasy looking." If I can't access the details, probably in the middle of a game, the details might as well not exist.
The Thule map was a labor of love (oh, those fjords!), and I'm eager to take on another map project, whether on Thule or somewhere else. And when that happens, I might even fiddle with the palette a bit. I've been looking at nautical charts a lot lately...
--Dave.
