Georgian Bay
“Often referred to as the sixth Great Lake, Georgian Bay features more than 30,000 islands and over 1,200 miles of shoreline. Georgian Bay’s beauty is rugged yet serene. Windswept pines, majestic towering cliffs, endless beaches and clear blue water all create a one-of-a-kind destination.” (Source: VisitGeorgianBay.com) This relief map highlights some of the places of interest mentioned in a travel feature in Country magazine.
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Nabesna Road
Nabesna Road is a 42-mile bumpy stretch of gravel road between Slana and Nabesna, Alaska. It is one of only two roads that access the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park. Hop in your 4WD vehicle (you’ll need it to splash through several creeks that cross the road) and enjoy the Mentasta Mountains and plentiful wildlife you’ll encounter along the drive. I created this map in a whimsical style to accompany a travel feature in the February/March 2016 issue of Country magazine.
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Rhode Island
A simple map of Rhode Island showing the location of various places mentioned in a travel article in Country magazine.
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Florida to Sicily
This map was published in the Summer 2018 issue of Windsurfing Now magazine to illustrate a surfer’s journey from Florida to Sicily to enter a competition.
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Magdalen Islands
The Magdalen Islands are a small group of islands in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The islands feature a variety of coastal landscapes including steep red cliffs, pebbled beaches and expanses of wide white sand as soft and beautiful as any that you’d find in the Caribbean.” (from FamilyFunCanada.com) This map appeared in the July 2012 issue of Country Extra magazine.
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John Muir Trail
The John Muir Trail stretches for 210 miles across California’s Sierra Nevada range. Most of the trail lies above 8,000 ft and offers incredible high alpine scenery. This map was published in the August/September 2012 issue of Country magazine.
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Canada Windsurfing
This digitally illustrated map was created as part of a set of 3 maps for Windsurfing Now magazine’s Summer 2018 issue. The story identifies some of the best windsurfing spots in New York, Vermont and southeast Canada.
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Down East Maine
This is a digital map I created for a photo essay about Maine’s rugged Down East coasts. I kept the map clean and simple so as not to detract from the beautiful photography on the page. The map helps to orient the reader to the location of some of the photos, and assorted points of interest. It appeared in the 2016 March/April issue of Country magazine.
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Sitka
Not every map needs to be detailed or intricately designed. Sometimes you want to simplify a complex location. Like I did with this map of Sitka, Alaska. It’s probably one of the simplest maps I’ve ever done, but it worked well in the context of the finished page layout. It doesn’t demand much attention, it’s just there to set the stage for the accompanying photos. It appeared in the November 2016 issue of Country Extra magazine.
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Canadian Rockies
I created this map for a travel story in Country Extra magazine [July 2016], called “Rockies Road Trip.” By the time I had finished the map and page layout, I was aching to visit this place for myself. Traveling the Icefields Parkway looks like an incredible roadtrip!
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Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island is one of Michigan’s most popular vacation destinations, particularly for active outdoor lovers. No cars are allowed on the island so you have to walk, ski, bike or ride horseback to get around. I created this simple little map for an article published in the January 2017 issue of Country Extra magazine.
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Cape Breton
Cape Breton Island is part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The island has developed a significant tourism industry thanks to its abundance of natural beauty, deep sense of Scottish culture, and hospitality of it’s residents (affectionately known as “Capers”). This fun map took up a full page and was overlaid with location photos from around the island. It was published in the August/September 2017 issue of Country magazine.
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Sierra Nevada
This map was created for a feature story about things to do in winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains of eastern California. It appeared in the 2018 December/January issue of Country magazine.
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Porcupine Mountains
Here’s a map I created to accompany a travel story in the Oct/Nov 2018 issue of Country magazine. The map ended up filling a two-page spread with gorgeous scenic photos laid over it. This is high on my list of places to hike next year!
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Shipwreck Coast
There is a stretch of coastline along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that is often referred to as the Shipwreck Coast or the Graveyard of the Great Lakes. Some 300 ships have met their fate along this stretch of Lake Superior’s shoreline roughly between Whitefish Bay’s Point Iroquois to Grand Marais. The most famous of these is the S.S Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in a wicked November ’75 storm just 17 miles off the shore of Whitefish Point. This map was featured in a story on the Shipwreck Coast published in Country magazine [August/September 2017].
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Cheyenne
I visited the Wyoming town of Cheyenne in 2017 to witness the spectacle of their famous Frontier Days. It’s a huge outdoor rodeo and western celebration, held annually since 1897. It’s billed as the largest of its kind in the world, drawing nearly 200,000 annually. I wrote a feature story about it in the March 2018 issue of Country Extra magazine. This map helped set the stage for photos of some of my experiences on that trip. (Note: if you’re into American history, especially of the Old West, visiting Cheyenne is a must!)
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Cuba Eco-Trip
This map was commissioned for promotional use to outline a guided eco-trip through Cuba. The numbers indicate each of the 11 days spent touring the island. Each of the numbers corresponds to a list of activities for each day. This map is strictly informative, meant only to show the primary route and places visited during the trip.
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Door County
Door County is definitely one of my favorite places to visit in Wisconsin. I love it’s small towns, cherry orchards, beautiful shorelines and nautical history. This map was created to accompany a travel feature in Country Extra magazine May 2016.
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Route 66
Route 66, “The Mother Road, is America’s most famous and historic stretch of highway. It links Chicago, Illinois in the east to Santa Monica, California in the west. I made this map showing the Illinois section of Route 66, to accompany a feature as published in the July 2016 issue of Country Extra magazine.
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Martinique
Windsurfing Now magazine asked me to create a series of 3 maps for a feature story in their Summer 2018 issue. This one of the island of Martinique depicts a challenging route one young surfer took around the windward side of the Caribbean island.
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Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky is best known as The Horse Capital of the World, and if you love all things equine a visit to the Kentucky Horse Park is an absolute requirement. It is also a popular destination for fans of bluegrass music and Civil War history. Oh, and if you like bourbon (America’s only native spirit), Lexington is home of the world-famous Bourbon Trail, which includes 13 distilleries with tasting rooms. This map appeared as part of a travel feature in the April/May 2017 issue of Country magazine.
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Milwaukee
I’ve lived in Brew City for many years and wanted to create a map that would serve as a tribute to the many things that make Milwaukee a “great city on a Great Lake!” This map was published on the website They Draw and Travel. (Below: map on a coffee mug; an early concept sketch)
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European Tour
My daughter recently traveled to Europe for the first time with a high school-sponsored educational tour group. They visited sites in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. I made this fun map to highlight some of the unique things she saw and did along the way. I am a fan of Swedish artist Olle Eksell (1918-2007) and I chose a color palette and overall style as an homage to his whimsical colors and illustrations. I made prints available for purchase to the families of the other students who went on the trip. I matted and framed this map and have it displayed on a shelf where my daughter can view it and recall fond memories.
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Haunted Chicago
I’m a big fan of Halloween and the TV show Ghost Adventures… and it was in that “spirit” that I was inspired to create this map of haunted sites around the Windy City. Chicago has a dark history of death, destruction and disaster. I challenged myself to use a limited color palette to create a nighttime/spooky mood. I’ve always loved the artwork of Edward Gorey (1925-2000) and added a few touches as an homage to his unique style. The horizontal format is a bit unorthodox but it suits the content pretty well; it also matches the required dimensions for the site They Draw and Travel. The research required to accurately arrange this map took more hours than planned, and also led me down some interesting rabbit holes. For example, I never really knew about the tragedy of the S.S. Eastland (844 passengers were killed, more than on the Titanic!) or about the horrific fire at the Iroquois Theatre (more than 600 people perished). I also didn’t know that Room 441 of the Congress Plaza Hotel was the inspiration behind Stephen King’s short story, 1408. There are way more reportedly haunted locations in Chicago than I could include on this map, but I […]
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Ballito
Ballito is a lovely little holiday town which lies on the Dolphin Coast of South Africa’s eastern shores. It’s a popular destination for newlyweds, beachgoers, adventure seekers and nature lovers. I was asked to redesign the map they use to promote their various estates, country clubs, schools, shopping centers and beaches. The map will be featured as a center spread in a regional magazine produced by 88FM Radio Life & Style. After working on this map I have totally fallen in love with the place!
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Mallorca
Mallorca (also spelled Majorca) is the largest of the Balearic islands, lying in the Mediterranean Sea off the east coast of Spain. It is a popular vacation destination for Europeans seeking sun-soaked R & R. This simplified map uses a geometric, graphic style to accompany a travel article about travel around the island. A lack of embellishments, such as icons and labels, allows the map to quickly communicate essential information and keep the viewer’s attention on the photos around it.
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Dry Tortugas
Dry Tortugas National Park is comprised of 7 individual islands 70 miles west of Key West, with Garden Key being the largest and most visited. Accessible only by boat or seaplane, the small island is perhaps most well-known for the largest all-brick masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere: Fort Jefferson, an old Civil War-era prison and military fortress. Nearly thirty years in the making (1846-1875), Fort Jefferson was never finished nor fully armed. Today it is operated by the National Park Service and serves not only to educate visitors to it’s important place in history, but also as a protected and pristine sanctuary for undersea life and nesting and migratory birds. This vacation map was commissioned to capture the memories of a day-trip to Dry Tortugas National Park — bright, fun and full of life!
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Guadeloupe
This is an illustrated map of the island of Guadeloupe, part of the French West Indies in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean Sea. The main butterfly-shaped landmass of Guadeloupe is actually two islands separated by a salt river and connected by two bridges. I created this map for birders visiting the island in search of Guadeloupe’s bird species, most notably the island’s sole endemic species: the Guadeloupe Woodpecker. I’ve marked some of the primary birding locations (called Important Bird Areas), the largest of which is the Guadeloupe National Park. This map was made for BirdsCaribbean for their 22nd Annual Conference in Guadeloupe, scheduled for July 25-29, 2019. The Caribbean is home to over 500 species of bird, including 172 species that are endemic to the region and found nowhere else in the world. In fact, there are over 100 bird species in the Caribbean that only live on one island. Overall, 59% of the resident birds—the ones that don’t migrate—in the region are endemic. The abundance of endemic species is one reason why the region is considered a biodiversity hotspot, and why conservation in the region is so important.
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Blues Highway
U.S. Highway 61 is perhaps better known as America’s Blues Highway, as some of the country’s biggest blues legends got their start in towns along this route. This map I created for Guesthouse at Graceland Hotel is meant to offer a sampling of the historic things to see from Memphis to New Orleans. You can read more about this exciting road adventure on the Guesthouse blog here.
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Athens
This map of Athens, Greece (and neighboring islands) was commissioned for use in orienting and informing attendees at a corporate sales conference in the region in June. It is supplemented by a detail map of the resort area (below), to highlight a few noteworthy buildings around the grounds of the hotel complex. The background was painted with watercolor while the icons and type were rendered digitally in Photoshop.
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Playa Vista
This real estate map was commissioned by a realtor in Playa Vista, California. Nicknamed “Silicon Beach” for it’s mass influx of big tech companies like Google, YouTube and Yahoo, this chic beachside community is only 15 miles southwest of L.A. and feels like the hippest and most happening young community on the West Coast! This map began as a watercolor painting (for the foundation) but everything else is digitally created. There are more than 65 individual buildings on this map, each created in the realistic architectural design of the real place. All 29 beautiful public parks and green spaces (and a few of their landscape and sculptural features) are also shown. Countless hours were spent in researching every single property and drawing each to be recognizable to anyone familiar with the neighborhood. I was sure to include plenty of people doing some of the things that make Playa Vista a fun and enjoyable place to live — shopping, sports, live music and dancing, food trucks and dog parks. This map is approximately 11″ x 17″ wide and has a TON of stuff going on, so I’ve included a couple close-up views to show off the details. It will be printed […]
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Fence Lake
I was commissioned to create a map for a family’s 40th reunion at their favorite cottage on Fence Lake in northern Wisconsin. This map will be printed and framed as a wall hanging, and also printed on paper coasters to be used by all the guests. What a super fun idea!
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Guanacaste
I used a Tombow calligraphy pen (one of my favorites!) to create the lines for this map. This was a concept design for a map to accompany a magazine story about surfing along the beautiful northeast coast of Costa Rica. Using only black ink lines and type — and sacrificing color and icons — allows for a simple, no-frills map style that helps orient the reader without distracting too much from the photos on the page.
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Milwaukee River Watersheds
I created this map for a conservation/research organization who needed a quality map of the watershed system of the Milwaukee River. Located in southeastern Wisconsin, the Milwaukee River Basin encompasses approximately 900 square miles of land and contains around 500 miles of perennial streams, 400 miles of intermittent streams, 35 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, 57 named lakes and many small lakes and ponds. [Source: Wisconsin DNR] Do you have a need for this map in your own publication or website? Contact me here for more information!
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Doctors Park
The Milwaukee County Parks Department commissioned me to create this illustrated map of Doctors Park, one of over 150 parks in the county part system. In total, there are roughly 15,000 acres of green space containing hiking and nature trails, golf courses, dog parks, beaches, community centers, botanical gardens and beer gardens. Located on the border of Fox Point and Bayside on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, Doctors Park offers 49 acres of mature woodland situated on a bluff above a pebbly beach. Dr. Joseph Schneider was a German immigrant who practiced ophthalmology and otology in Milwaukee for 45 years. He enjoyed gardening and nature and wanted to ensure that others could enjoy the lakefront property that gave him and his family so much enjoyment. Upon his death in 1927 he willed his private property to the city for “recreational purposes by my fellow citizens: that such natural beauty as it possesses be maintained and that it be devoted also as a refuge for wild birds.” Because of his (and my) love of birds, I emphasized a few of the most common avian species that would be encountered in this park. I added labels on the plants and animals help […]
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Las Vegas
I was commissioned by a client in Las Vegas to design two maps for a Moke vehicle company. They want to provide drivers with these maps to show various resorts and attractions they can see along The Strip and Downtown. Moke vehicles have a maximum speed of 25 mph, so it was important that the maps clearly depicted the designated routes.
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Sisters of St. Joseph
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, Pennsylvania are celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. They have planned a special farm-to-table dinner and a walking tour of their historic grounds. This illustrated map will be handed out to help guide visitors to various locations around the parish grounds; each station will feature photos and interesting information.
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Coronado Island
I was asked to create this map of Coronado Island, San Diego to help guide Moke drivers around town and direct them to unique attractions. Moke America rents low-speed vehicles (LSV) as a hip and fun way to tour the city. After doing some research about the island, I used emerald green for the color palette. I learned that Coronado is nicknamed “The Emerald City” after L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who frequented the island and enjoyed staying at the Hotel del Coronado, often for months at a time. Baum designed the crown chandeliers in the famous Crown Room at the hotel. [Source: CoronadoNewsCA.com] This Moke route map is the second in an ongoing series. The first was Las Vegas.
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Key West
I created this vibrant map of Old Town Key West as an homage to a place that is especially memorable to me. I imagined I was taking my best friend to this place…What sites would we see? What activities would we do? What museums might we visit? Where will we grab a coffee or enjoy a meal? What experiences will we have? I designed this map to serve as both a guide for others who are visiting Key West for the first time, and as a visual keepsake of the time I got to spend there. I was only in Key West for 3 days, but I loved every second! I especially adored the warm salty air, but I also loved the bright tropical colors, the lush vegetation and fragrant flowers, the sight and sound of birds and the taste of fresh fish. I tried to convey some of those same sensory experiences in this map.
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Santa Ynez Valley
I was commissioned to design this map for Moke America for their customers in Solvang and the Santa Ynez Valley of California. This region is well-known for their vineyards and wineries, and Moke America wanted to provide drivers with a map that locates some of these places. Since Moke vehicles have a maximum speed of 25 mph, another function of the map is to accurately depict the designated routes. This map is the fourth in an ongoing series of maps for Moke America.
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Milwaukee Custard
Did You Know…Milwaukee is the Frozen Custard Capital of the World! If you’re not from the Midwest, you may never have heard of this dairy delight, let alone ever eaten it. Interestingly enough, though, this dessert was first introduced in the early 1900s at Coney Island in New York, and later offered to the masses at the 1933-34 World’s Fair in Chicago. The innovative and delicious treat made its way north to Milwaukee and promptly took root. Even today Milwaukee is famous for — as much as for its beer and cheese curds — its mom n’ pop frozen custard stands. I was approached by Milwaukee Food Tours to create an illustrated map of the city’s most historic and delicious custard stands, to be printed on tea towels and given away as part of their 2019 Christmas gift card campaign. Next time you find yourself in the Cream City (especially in the summertime), be sure to stop in at one of these iconic custard stands and prepare your taste buds to be blown away!
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Milwaukee Water
Milwaukee Water Works asked me to redesign their Service Area Map (original shown below). The existing map was deemed to be visually stale and uninspired. For the new map I made many additions to add some vitality: I included the most prominent rivers that feed Lake Michigan (all of Milwaukee residents, business and industries rely on the lake as the source of water); I used small vignettes to depict scenes of the most common useages of water by Milwaukee-area residents; I illustrated the major water treatment plants and water towers that either historically or presently contribute to the distribution of water through the communities; the addition of a lake whitefish and a great blue heron are a nod to the animals that also rely on clean water.
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Christiansted, St. Croix
Christiansted is the largest town on St. Croix, the largest of the 3 Caribbean islands that make up the United States Virgin Islands. Caravelle Hotel & Casino wanted a map that they could use to point their guests in the right direction to explore various attractions around town — such as the Christiansted National Historic Site (operated by the National Park Service), which includes the island’s oldest building, Fort Christiansvaern. The bright color palette uses the colors from the hotel’s logo.
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Milwaukee – Bird Treasures
The Urban Ecology Center approached me to create an illustrated map of 10 of the most memorable bird species that visit the Greater Milwaukee area: Bald eagle Snowy owl Common tern Red-breasted merganser Baltimore oriole Scarlet tanager Eastern meadowlark Sora Magnolia warbler White-throated sparrow Whether endangered, threatened, rare or just difficult to spot, the UEC encourages everyone to treasure these species while they are still around. Every May since 2010, the Urban Ecology Center of Southeastern Wisconsin has sponsored the Green Birding Challenge, a friendly competition that encourages everyone to get outside to explore the wonders of resident and migratory birds in Milwaukee. This map will be printed as a poster and auctioned off to raise money to help support the mission of the UEC: “We connect people in cities to nature and each other.”
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United Nissan – Las Vegas
During the lockdown, United Nissan of Las Vegas thought a map of their dealership lot would help their customers guide themselves to specific vehicles (since in-person sales consultations are prohibited at this time). What a clever way to continue to do business despite the no-contact rules!
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Wildland Firefighting
I was asked by Boy’s Life magazine (the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1911) to create this full-spread illustration depicting the complex organization of a wildland fire Incident Command System (ICS). This art will be overlaid with text captions describing each of the ICS components. Researching this was extraordinarily interesting and inspiring to me. I highly recommend the movie Only the Brave and the book it was based on, Granite Mountain by Brendan McDonough — both are about the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy in Arizona that killed 19 wildland firefighters, this country’s greatest loss of firefighters since 9/11. Another great book to read is Smokejumpers by Jason A. Ramos. These brave men and women are unsung heroes and deserve greater awareness and support.
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United States
The United States and India have been working hard to improve bilateral relations with an emphasis on economic, scientific, and educational ties. One important way this is accomplished is through the education of students throughout India. The U.S. Dept of State asked me to create an illustrated map of all 50 states in the Union, featuring icons representing familiar landmarks, nature, well-known attractions and unique American values like equal opportunity, individual freedom and volunteerism. My map can be used to display the entire nation and also to highlight each individual state.
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Animal Constellations
I created this map as an entry to a contest called “Out of This World” on the website They Draw and Travel. As both a former zookeeper and an enthusiastic stargazer, the theme for my map was an easy choice: an imaginary zoo in the night sky! There are over 40 animal-related constellations in the night sky, too many to fit in one map; I had only enough “space” to fit 13 of my favorites. This is a mixed media production: the background texture and stars were painted with watercolor, the animals were drawn in Procreate and the type and special effects were made in Photoshop. I feel I know these constellations much better now and could recognize them quite easily in the sky — I hope others will find this map useful too!
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