VICTORIA'S MAP DESIGN PROJECT: Mapping the Seaside Town of Brighton, England

Lived in Brighton for a year+ and loved it! I'd love to map the places that are fondly in my memories - the shops, the lanes, the pubs, the clubs, the tea shops, the coffee shops, the clubs, the people...

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Photo inspiration:

Who am I?

Hello! My name is Victoria Nguyen and I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, California! I'd also love to say I'm an aspiring Map Designer! :P I also go by MapWanderer, and maybe the name shows you how much I love maps. I'm just so fascinated by them - check out my recent blog post in honor of starting this class: http://mapwanderer.com/2013/02/18/map-maps-on-my-travels/

• Why am I making this map? For fun? A client? A gift? To showcase my favorite places? Etc.

I definitely decided to do this for fun, but I want to eventually fine tune it and be able to print it out postcard size and share it with the friends I made in Brighton.

• Why am I the expert to create this map?

Ok, so I won't say I'm an expert, but in the year+ I lived in Brighton, I definitely explored a lot of places. I was living right in the heart of the city centre, so it was a great jumping point for the town.

• Who is my target audience?

Everyone! I want to share how great of a place Brighton is to visit, but I also want to use it to share with the friends that lived there with me so we could remember the good times. :)

• Do I want my final project to be printed or digital? How is going to be used/held? What other constraints do I need to keep in mind moving forward? (Note type can be smaller on printed maps than when viewed on web)

Both! I'd love to share it online, but I also do want to eventually have it in a format that could be printed out from postcard size to poster size. With this in mind, I need a thin tip pen to really get into details!

• What level of detail do I need to include? (Names, addresses, contact info, street names, website, hours, descriptions, color coding, etc.)

My idea is to make the map more of a fun one. In addition to writing names, I want to do small icons, too. For example, there's a pub down the street called the Spotted Dog - I will want to draw a small, simple spotted dog as part of the "name". Street names? Yes, that'll be important.

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DESIGN IDEAS

+Architecture - Victorian || Somehow I want to incorporate this into the whole look of the map.

+Weather - Sunny bright day || It doesn't happen too often, but when it does, Brighton is a great place to be!

+Colors - Yellows and blues and teals || Fitting for a seaside town!

+Boundaries - West: the West Pier (burned down), East: Brighton Pier, North: Brighton Train Station, South: The Beach/Ocean!

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Ok, here's the progress of my Brighton map design with visuals...

(1) Googlemaps! I want my map to be accurate and have all the correct streets.

(2) My first attempt at a hand-drawn map.

Comments on this first attempt: 

• I need to draw smaller so I can cover a larger area.
• I need a fine tip black pen. This one doesn't allow much detail, plus it's just not a good pen.
• I need to draw while directly referencing the googlemaps so it will be more accurate.
• I need to figure out a way to draw the roads and pier and the beach and buildings....

And here's the notes I took to keep track of the places I want to make sure to include: