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Firefly Cartography

A Vehicle for Tricking Normal People into Wanting to Make Maps

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Firefly cartography (or glow-maps, overproduced tripe, whatever you like to call it…) has a pretty tight set of characteristics that converge to deliver a pretty standard effect. I can say this with confidence because I am making up the name and applying it to these characteristics. Generally, a firefly map has a…

Dark, de-saturated basemap (usually imagery)

Masked highlight area and vignette

Single bright, glowing, thematic layer

I started making them around 2012, but others were probably doing similar things long before me.

Capturing Eyeballs

Firefly cartography tricks normal people into realizing how much they like maps.

Why? what is it about this aesthetic that tends to earn a second glance? I have a few purely speculative ideas…

Cinematic Effect (affect)

This sort of map looks a bit like what you might see on the overhead monitors of intelligence officers or hackers in a dimly-lit command center in a thriller. Now, people may be attracted to this style because of that familiarity, or they are familiar with them because digital set designers make stuff that looks attractive. Cart/horse, but either way, there is a distinct Jason Bourne vibe these maps put out.

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Clarity of Theme

Sadly, many maps just have way too many themes (different than lots of data) going on all at once to be attractive at a glance (or all that useful even with careful study). Maps that inspire and get passed to friends tend to have a tight focus in topic. A map without an inherent elevator pitch, a dozen thematic layers, and cascades of shapes and color will have a difficult time engendering reader enthusiasm.

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They Glow!

A firefly map is to regular thematic maps the way that a lightsaber is to swords. Thematic layers that look like they are etched with white hot plasma tend to draw eyeballs and provide a sense of intensity that solid Boolean symbology just doesn’t offer.

I think we are wired to note well things that glow. Whether it is marking time by the sun or moon, staring into embers, watching for nighttime travelers by the open flame they carry, or noting the churned phosphorescence of the sea, we historically have done well to keep an eye on the glowing stuff.

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Exciting Students

Firefly cartography tricks students into realizing how much they like making maps.

Like no other type of map that I’ve made, this aesthetic has (anecdotally) resulted in far and away the overwhelming majority of feedback from folks who tell me they are excited to try something similar, or show me the results of their work. Something about it encourages new map makers to roll up their sleeves and have a go.

There is no better result of having made a map, to me, than that. In putting together this aesthetic, new map makers are blasting through a lot of general cartographic concepts that are helpful no matter the resulting aesthetic they prefer (for what it’s worth, the following concepts make up a healthy proportion of these 20 map-making tips nobody asked for).

Here is a procedural walk-through of how to create this aesthetic, and why…

Basemap | Fore/Ground

Basemap | Context

Thematic Data & Glow

Firefly cartography may be over-wrought, overdone(?), overthought, but I like it. And I’ve seen it’s ability to earn a map a thoughtful look in a bloated busy internet; I’ve been encouraged by its tendency to inspire the creative process in others; I’m excited to ride it as a means of teaching cartography to people who didn’t realize they wanted to learn cartography.

It is a crafty, sometimes beautiful, technique that I am happy to promote and excited to describe. I do hope you give it a try and share your results.

Happy mapping! John

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