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Camino de Santiago - Mapping the walk

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 12:16:27 GMT

Mapping the Camino de Santiago

An overview of the work I carried out to produce the maps for the DK book Walking the Camino de Santiago , published January 2026.

All hi-resolution map images are taken from promotional material supplied by DK. Any work in progress images are from archive and/or occasionally recreated. All opinions are my own and have no connection to the publishers.

Pilgrimage Plotting and Planning

Reaching from the furthest edges of Europe and beyond, the sprawling network of paths leading to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain seems to take on the form of a river network with its tributaries meandering and merging as they make their way toward the city's cathedral, home of the remains of Saint James the Apostle.

It is one of the greatest and most popular long distance walks, regularly tackled in small manageable segments while others walk from start to finish in one gruelling undertaking. There is no right or wrong way to approach the journey, be it with religious intent or secular curiosity, its story is born through personal achievement and community.

Getting Started

For pilgrims and hikers alike, the Camino de Santiago is a huge undertaking spanning many weeks and months of planning. As a result, hundreds of guidebooks and maps have been printed over the years to help the traveller forward toward Santiago de Compostela . The travel team at DK wanted to publish something beautiful to introduce those who had heard of the pilgrimage but perhaps not dived deeply into the history or logistics. This was to be a welcoming introduction to the most common routes, stories and mythology.

It was designed to be a beautiful large format gift book rather than a small practical guide. The practical guides are brilliantly precise in their explanation of routes, usually focusing on just a single selected Camino from the start up to the doors of the cathedral, but this can be overkill for a reader who is interested in discovering the differing routes' variety. It can also be overwhelming when confronted by books and maps forensically outlining the pilgrimage which are more suited to later in the planning process or on the road.

The book was always intended to be a celebration of this spiritual journey.

Design

As with all new titles, it is critical to lock in the design direction from the start. The designers will look at what has already been published and then build a design which will be in-keeping with DK 's style while also avoiding replicating any existing products. A design mood board is created by the design lead to introduce the rest of the team to looks, colours, typefaces and styles in a loose and engaging way. This helps everyone understand how the book will feel.

Once the mood board has been circulated and the team are familiar with the broad visual environment the designer is working in, the different layouts and styles are gradually locked in place and the Adobe inDesign templates are created. This gives the rest of the design department the styles, typefaces and colour swatches to work from. This was also where the map styles would begin to be drawn together.

Illustration

From the very start of the project the senior designer had flagged an illustrator they were keen to commision, Claire Harrup . The maps needed to align with the style of the illustrator without mimicing or attempt to replicate Claire's fantastic work, mainly as the amount of cartography meant I was not able to commission actual illustrations of each map. I was also approaching the map elements from a cartographic angle, so had restrictions on what I could and could not show for clarity.

Map Research

As soon as the possibility of the book was raised I had began to gather examples of interesting hiking map styles so I could have an illustrated discussion with the design team regarding mapping direction once the mood boards had been circulated. The ideas are usually just screenshots or photos, I tend to squirrel away copies of interesting maps that I discover day-to-day for just such a situation. These litter my photo library and are a fantastic creative spark when building the map design.

The Routes

Deciding which of the hundreds of Camino routes to include in the book was a decision taken at the start of the project. The physical size of the book and the limitation of 224 pages all come into play when dividing the pages. Strangely, the larger the book the less likely it is to sell, there is something overbearing and unwieldy in a 400 page book as it becomes too heavy to hold, difficult to store and transport. The huge gift books are impressive gifts but dreadful to read. I often see adverts for enormous Taschen books sold with accompanying stands for thousands of pounds and wonder which financial corporate office reception they are destined to gather dust in.

The authors and editor selected eight routes which are the most established.

• CAMINO FRANCÉS

The Camino Francés (the French Route ) starts in the French town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port just across the French border and makes its way through the Pyrenees ' Roncevaux Pass and on through the Spanish countryside passing cities such as Léon and Pamplona . As mentioned in the book, 180,000 pilgrims make this trip each year covering just under 500 miles.

• CAMINO PORTUGUÉS

Heading north from the city of Lisbon, the Portuguese Route can be split at a later stage to either hug the coast or continue a straighter route inland, the later taking 380 miles to reach the cathedral.

• CAMINO DEL NORTE

The Cantabrian Sea is the star along the Northern Route which hugs cliffs and crosses marshes and estuaries. Passing through Santander and Ribadeo before turning inland along the Masma River toward Santiago de Compostela . At 500 miles or so this is another long Camino.

• CAMINO PRIMITIVO

Known as the Original Way , this is the oldest of the walks, first trod by King Alfonso II in the 9th century. It's a mountainous route with plenty of historical sights and natural beauty. To complete the hike it will take a fortnight to cover the 200 miles.

• VIA DE LA PLATA

The longest route in the book which snakes its way from the heart of Seville over 600 miles from the doors of the cathedral. The Silver Way (its translation) is a much less travelled route suited to the experienced hiker. This Camino is particularly gruelling in the summer heat.

• CAMINO INGLÉS

The English Route technically begins in the heart of County Durham in the north of England . There is a route from here to the ferry port in Southampton but this section starts at either A Coruña or Ferrol, the towns whose docks welcome the pilgrims. This is the shortest route and only just sneaks in over the necessary 62 miles to qualify as a pilgrimage.

• CAMINO INVIERNO

The ' Winter Way ' is a newer route to allow pilgrims to make the journey in the north year round. Only officially approved in 2016 it avoids the more severe mountains of the Camino Primitivo as it heads west toward Santiago de Compostela .

• CAMINO FINISTERRE-MUXÍA.

An oddity, as this is a trail away from the cathedral to the 'edge of the world', the dramatic shoreline at Finisterre . A further continuation of the route to the north to visit the town of Muxía is possible.

Accuracy vs Aesthetics vs Clarity

As previously mentioned, there are already many guides to the Camino routes on the shelves, mostly focusing on a specific route giving step-by-step instructions. These are brilliant resources for the hikers and are usually small enough to fit in a backpack giving support as the journey progresses. This book however was more an inspirational overview, allowing more creative freedom in producing the maps.

The 'overview' nature of the book called for larger scale maps, meaning that the accuracy was relevant only in regard to the relative locations and distance. We included where a route curves, followed rivers or avoided mountains, but the scale meant a more generalised depiction. This allowed the reader to understand the nature and progression of the journey relating to the text. It allowed us to emphasis what was important and offset what was less so. The expectation is if the reader is to actually start a Camino they will take an in-depth guide, plan on detailed CNIG (IGN) paper maps or select an up to date digital navigation tool.

Data Sources

As with all maps used in commercial products, I needed a detailed paper trail to show that there was no copyright infringement during any part of their creation. Despite map data increasingly being more casually captured, shared and adapted with technological changes and social media adaptation, I was budgetarily tied to open source data and the content provided from the authors.

All sights and locations mentioned in the author's text were plotted on a digital map (Google) which was then exported to QGIS to lay on top of Openstreetmap and Natural Earth data.

Not every location mentioned in the text was shown on the maps but from an initial starting point it is always better to have everything in place and available than have to return to the files at a later stage.

Relief

To indicate the type of landscapes the Caminos passed through I wanted to include a representations of the physical relief (hills and mountains). I tested a few ideas based around the use of contour layers (tinted fills rather than singular lines) and hillshading. Both were created using Opentopography data run through QGIS . These worked fine but the resulting maps were in conflict with the illustrated design. Too scientific and precise in feel.

Thankfully I had a rare budget allowance to commission the illustrator to produce a collection of mountain and hill profiles shapes. These I requested to range in severity from smooth to jagged, the latter representing more heavily mountainous areas. When they returned they were beautiful and exactly what I had requested and I immediately embedded them on the maps. I carefully scanned the illustrations and converted to vector paths to place within the Adobe Illustrator map files. This allowed the integration of the mountains and hills into the file's digital structure and also freed the files from requiring repeated logging of linked image files on the companies digital library.

This of course meant the same brush styles and techniques used on the beautiful illustrations now being submitted were able to be brought into the maps. I liked the really subtle hint toward the world of fantasy mapping which has a huge following.

Shell symbol

The symbol for the Camino is a yellow scallop seashell, echoing the convergence of the routes at the cathedral. This shell can be found pointing the way toward the cathedral from signs and gate posts as you walk. The symbol was to be heavily integrated into the book design appearing on the cover illustration, endpapers as small embellishments throughout. I was keen to integrate the icon on to the maps.

I investigated using the symbol as a repeating pattern to make the actual route, but his was a non-starter as it brought too much noise to the map. I also tied using an adapted version as a progress arrow along side the route line to give direction. In the end I found it worked best sparingly and so was used to distinguish the start and end point of each route, the symbol appearing within the black town stamps.

The symbol I used was created by hand drawing a segmented sea shell, this was drawn at a large scale then reduced to roughly an icon's size (roughly 80px squared at 100%), the artwork needed simplification to suit the size reduction but it worked well.

Across all maps the town symbol is a consistent black circle with a slightly jagged edge. As the route was to be split into sub-routes the towns which acted as dividing points needed to be clearly identified. I had originally planned on having the route line split either side of these symbols with the circle being modified for easy identification. This did work but on the smaller route maps it was less graceful. I instead increased the size of the town stamp to show the importance of the location. This was not hugely successful as it does look overpowering and, if there was one change to the mapping in the book I would make, it would be to revisit these largest dots and finesse them a little further.

Brush Stokes

The maps were built using vector linework (as with all DK's maps) allowing edits to be make to the position, width and style of all elements but the illustrated elements in the book were produced in Photoshop using raster structure (small grids of colour value). To match the styles the maps needed to use specific brush styles and transparency styles to appear 'drawn'.

The maps were produced using a wide variety of brush styles and brush widths, the white mask brush alone held five or six styles, these inconsistent weights and widths are what really bring handmade feeling. The lines themselves were imported as a single long element but, when adding a brush style, the characteristic is pulled across the whole length singularly. To create a more natural appearance the line was split at places to mimic the hand being raised from the page. The single line elements were maintained for future use but hidden on layers beneath the artwork; Never delete anything that you could possibly need in the future .

An Illustrated background

As well as supplying the collection of mountains and hills, the illustrator also provided a texture sheet which I used to represent land. Each route/chapter was given an indexed colour to categorise each Camino . This is a regular technique used to divide up a book as the page's appearances will instantly change as you flick through the pages dividing the routes.

These swatches were evolving and changing as the book progressed and were still 'live' until the final proofs were returned and assessed a few days before the book went to print. Colour changes were simple as the chosen colour swatch to be used were modifying a greyscale image (the illustrator's work). Changing the colour was done by opening the file and changing the colour swatch library which automatically updated the treated images.

I had earlier experimented by giving the water a texture that suggested waves. Initial tests were interesting but it really was too heavy and clashed with the map's purpose and also the differing chapter colours. In the end a single blue colour was used across the texture.

Feeding the design team - Splitting the routes and sizing maps

The routes by their nature are long and narrow. To map them clearly without taking over a whole page or squashing detail meant they would have to be split. Having multiple maps in a chapter changes the amount of available space for both text and imagery so I needed to supply the design team with approximate dimensions for each map as early as possible.

The maps were not going to be framed but had a brushed edge, meaning that the exact size and shape was not known until the map was finally drawn and checked. I created initial mock-ups for each of the maps using raw Openstreetmap data and scaled / skewed the files within object frames within the inDesign spreads until I could supply the sizes.

The split points for each map had to be at the end of a segment of the route to match the divisions in the text. I also included enough of the continuing route meaning the following map linked smoothly.

Locators

At the start of each of the chapters I drew a small locator map to show the full route in relation to the Iberian peninsula. It was a quick reference so the reader did not have to return to the overview map earlier in the book; a regular map element in guidebooks. Initial versions of the map were produced using a style similar to the main maps but at a request from the design lead it was simplified as it was felt to conflict with the chapter title. The chapter title was already heavy but they wanted no other element that could draw the eye immediately from the name of the chapter .

In the end I thinned the map style back to being a single line for the country shape and the route shown in black brush stroke with labels and symbol for the start and end of the route. This map base was duplicated for each of the intro pages.

Finding a new photographic view for design

One diverting request midway through the data gathering was to find a location on the ground where the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela would be visible in the far distance and a pathway leading to it. This was for a brief to the illustrator. After checking contours, building angles and building height data it became apparent that the image which was wanted was not actually possible. This meant the main cover image would need to be an artistic interpretation of the route rather than an actual location.

Combining all the routes - the Overview Map

The large map at the start of the book is an opportunity to show the relative paths of each of the Camino routes covered in the following chapters. The map needed to show the start and end point for the routes, how they drift and stray, and a rough indication of the landscape en-route. The file was created by importing the combined QGIS GIS files, scaling and then tracing in freehand over the routes. This is not the usual technique but it allowed me creative freedom to enhance, emphasis and build stronger relationships between the routes.

A sparse collection of principal cities and mountain range names were added, as were international boundaries and country names. The routes had to be immediate and more information merely detracts from the map's story.

To explain the scale and number of the Camino routes , there was a second map showing many of the other routes that are known to lead to Santiago de Compostela . This was very sparse and low on detail, unnamed routes and no country boundaries or scale information. It simply indicates the coverage of the routes in relation to Europe.

The City Map

The city of Santiago de Compostela was given a chapter to itself to hightlight how and where the last steps of the pilgrimage take place. We also wanted to show the city's many attractions and cultural highlights as well as indicating the different directions from which the routes enter (and exit) the centre of the city.

City plans are usually straightforward to draw and choices regarding map extent (how much of the city area it covers) and scale are dependent on the writer's text. In a progress similar to the preceding routes, the text had to arrive from the authors first and from this I was able to plot the locations of all the sights.

I sourced data from Openstreetmap and drew the street plan as a normal vector map and began styling to match previous maps using the brush tools and textured background. The white mask edge was trickier to plot as the shape of the town plan was almost square and missing an organic boundary. In the end I pulled the white mask edge into a more smudged rectangular shape to allow for parts of the city map to be given a soft non-linear edge.

All the sights mentioned within the text were included, as were arrows showing the direction of the routes into the city.

Credits:

The book design began with look and feel and illustrator commissioning by Laura O'Brien .

Midway through the project the design reins were passed to Michael Curia, with assistance from Louise Brigenshaw and Katie Thomas . Managing art editor for the project was Gemma Doyle.

As mentioned in the introduction, the illustrator who brought such life to the page was Claire Harrup .

The text itself was written by Sarah Baxter , Dayna Camilleri Clarke , and Daniel Stables which was then tailored to the page by Lucy Richards and Zoë Rutland and their team of editors.

Buy it here!

ISBN: 978-0-2417-6029-1

Tools and Data:

Adobe Illustrator (main mapping)
Adobe Photoshop (texture manipulation)
Adobe inDesign (layout)
QGIS (Openstreetmap data wrangling)
Google maps (data transfer)
Openstreetmap data

Building a Playlist for a Road Trip

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:03:22 GMT

Building a playlist for a road trip

Midway through the Route 66 project, the senior designer put forward the great suggestion to include a Spotify playlist for the route. With music being such an integral part of long, cross-country drives this was immediately loved by all working on the book. I began to assemble a song list to 'stress test' the idea, mainly to see exactly what the music could be and how we could best share it.

In the distant past a journey crossing the continent would have been at the mercy of AM radio - aided by all its crackles and interference. It wasn’t until the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s that the superior FM radio frequencies were opened up but these had short range and were found only in larger urban areas. Cassettes, CDs and iPods took the weight until the early 2010s when SiriusXM brought satellites to the car. Now it’s more likely a smart phone will be connected to an online and near infinite library.

What is missed is the experience of the unpredictable, you never knew what was coming next and when a song was played it was for that moment, not to be rewound. It was music chosen by somebody else from a different part of the country with differing experiences and tastes. No wonder the good radio stations and DJs had such loyal followers, islands amidst the talk and religious programming.

We wanted to become a radio station for the journey

Having been a music fanatic my entire life, often planning travel based around concerts or music history I was delighted to have this opportunity to work through the playlists. It was also a nice way of stopping me from pitching the ‘ Music Traveller’s Guide ’ again. Almost yearly for half a decade. One day...

We were initially unsure if the playlist would be a single list for the whole journey or if it would be split either thematically or geographically. As we discussed the idea it became clear that each of the states would benefit from its own dedicated playlist. The selections I then chose were songs that either relate directly to the route or each individual state. The obvious connection being an artist’s home state but with only a limited possible number of entries per state the selection became more focused, as did the order and versions of songs to include.

Although selected music was mostly commercial pop, country and rock artists, I felt it was important to include a diverse selection to highlight the different music born from each state, this is why Pantera was included alongside Garth Brookes , and The Rondelles were on the list with Miles Davis. The possibilities for each state were plentiful and it was a delight to research. The sheer variety of music was the death nail for an early suggestion to include a different cover version of the track Route 66 in each state’s playlist.

I had an additional cartographic task to take on, marking any locations mentioned in song on the maps that were being produced. I Ain't in Checotah Anymore by Carrie Underwood needed the city of Checorah in Oklahoma adding to the map as well as highway numbers mentioned within the songs lyrics. The stories in these songs can literally be seen on the road.

We needed to check that every track was available across the main sales markets the book would be sold in, although this is not guaranteed as music licences change with surprising regularity. Once printed there is obviously little that can be done. Likewise should any shocking revelation about an artist be revealed we will have to wait for the next edition to be replaced.

Once I had the list checked and approved by the editorial team, writers and international publishers, the designer was able to create the artwork replicating a traditional diner jukebox listing and we placed it on the opening map for each chapter. A cover for the playlist was created and uploaded to Spotify and the playlist shared using a Spotify barcode. This graphic needed to be printed in full black, both for the licensing by Spotify and technically this would enable us to swap out if needed in later printings. We split the black elements onto a seperate file to print making a change cheaper and quicker.

This was a lovely idea which was only marred by being anchoring to a single music provider. Spotify has regularly been criticized for its royalty payments (or lack thereof) as well as some controversial investments in military and ai tech by its founder. The obstacle to alternatives such as Tidal or Deezer was their market share and awareness was not strong enough at the time of printing to consider.

Personal Highlights from the Playlist

Route 66: Creating the Maps

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 13:56:39 GMT

Route 66: How We Made the Maps

One of the world’s most celebrated journeys, Route 66 has been capturing the hearts and imagination of millions since its inauguration in 1926. To commemorate the road's centenary the travel publishing team at DK produced a gorgeous book dedicated to the adventure of the Mother Road , focusing on all that is iconic and unique about the epic journey from Chicago to the Pacific .

Searching for the Book

It’s a hard slog to publish any new book these days, the planets have to perfectly align and ideally its subject should be high in the public’s awareness. The route’s 100th birthday was already being discussed a year or so ahead of 2026, and as the publisher had no dedicated book to the route, it was given a green light.

The editors and authors built the book’s focus and structure before they opened a discussion with the design team to create its appearance. It was then my responsibility as part of the team to plan and build the essential cartographic elements. You can’t have a book about this route without showing it.

Thoughts of old AAA and Rand McNally sheet maps that would have been integral to any US road trip came to mind, alongside the countless free promotional maps handed out at diners and hotels, all thumbed, annotated and road worn.

A week or so later the design team produced a mood board to suggest an aesthetic direction for the title. I was delighted that the sun-faded sides of old diners, bleached neon signs and mid-century illustration matched my initial thoughts on the project. Bold cracked fonts and distorted textures echoed the long and road weary narrative. A perfect launching point for interesting cartography.

Once the design team had a direction I created a map mood board to share my initial cartographic directions.

Mood boards are a really useful tool to explain an aesthetic direction in a shorthand way which designers are familiar with. The map mood boards are usually created as an answer to those created by the design team. Sometimes, if calendars matched, we could combine to produce a single document to send around to the team but this was unfortunately rare in an office with ten or more urgent titles in progress at any one time.

The map mood board was a gathering of pre-existing maps (the Rands' and AAA ) as well as some of the maps in books we had already produced in house. Symbology suggestions and font variants were also included but until the final font choices are made and locked into the inDesign templates there is no huge progression. Mood boards are a tool to explain the purpose and rough appearance of the map elements and as such I leave it as open to discussion as possible. Designers like to contribute to cartographic appearances and if I am able to subtly lead the team toward an outcome that works then all the better. Explaining decisions early on in any project avoids confusion or conflict in vision at a later, more critical, stage.

By this point it had been decided that the book was to be an inspirational overview of the route with each of the long, beautifully illustrated chapters dedicated to a different state as the reader progressed west. I would be allocated a page spread near the start of each chapter to show the shape of the route from the point it entered the state to when it left. This was the bulk of the cartographic work.

There would also be a route overview map at the start of the book to show the full extent of the route in relation to the entire lower 48 states.

It’s a matter of orientation

The nature of the journey meant the route would be travelling in almost a horizontal line across the states as it travels west. The only complications being Illinois where it heads more south west and Kansas which is a tiny dogleg into the far south east of the state. The maps would cover each state with the route progressing from east to west. To ensure the reader sees the direction of travel we would need to include arrows to the route.

Due to the route crossing the page in such a narrow band there was enough empty space available on the page spread that I had initial thoughts of including small city maps. These would have been for the main hubs of Chicago, Los Angeles, St Louis and Albuquerque but as the project continued it became apparent that this was not a practical guide and was not critical to the reader. It also would have taken more time and therefore more cost. Interestingly, the majority of city sights were found on the outskirts and were able to be included on the main map.

Another consideration with the 'empty space' was overfill. Drawing too detailed a map across the whole page would draw the eye away from the route and make a noisy layout. The road needed to be instantly visible, as did the direction of travel. Showing a simple road network, rivers and lakes as well as main towns and park areas was enough.

As we were not including the city maps we had a lot of space to fill. One suggestion was a secondary list of the sights along the route shown with a page reference to assist in cross referencing to pages in the forthcoming chapter. What soon became apparent was the labels on the map were able include these page numbers and any repetition was just filling space.

Later in the project the playlist was able to be added in the available space.

Gutters

The nature of book binding means the gutter (the part of the page which is lost in the middle where the pages meet) is always an issue for cartographers. Although this title's gutter was not as severe as those found in smaller travel guides, we still did not want the map to disappear or hide any important information. Thankfully the sights being highlighted were almost universally distributed away from the centre of each state where the split in the page was crossing.

Once combined with the scale we were using for the majority of the maps it was easy to run the map as a single image across the spread with no need to split.

Depicting the route

The route is the heart of the map and needs to be instantly understood when viewing the page. As beautiful as some artistic methods of route representation can be, if you can't immediately make out the progression of the journey they are useless.

I had played with many line styles to see how they would work on the page. Outlining the road, dotted routes, just using arrows and a number of other techniques but nothing was as instant as a single solid line. As each state had been allocated its own colour swatch by the design team the line needed to be a consistent colour as opposed to a complementary or changing colour which could cause confusion.

The chapter colours were also of varying strength so running a plain white or pale route throughout could be tricky to identify on lighter colours. A black line was the clearest style, its strength also meant we could add texture and character without losing any impact.

Textures

The design department’s mood boards for the book had many beautiful images of rusted and sun faded roadsigns and the warm welcoming curves of diner counters and petrol station pumps. This needed to be echoed on the maps and the addition of a texture was locked in from an early stage.

I had originally overlayed a temporary dotted and distressed texture which filled empty space on the map and called back to the printed texture of old mass market free sheets.

The line of the route itself was also given a distorted texture, it was too solid and imposing on its own as a wide black line so a duotone style was added. To do this the line was converted from a single stroke to a filled polygon into which textures could be added.

The single line was of course maintained, hidden beneath the other layers in the file, to ensure the map could be adapted and modified if necessary in the future. At points along the route line an additional brush stroke was added to add some organic feel to the depiction of the journey.

Working alongside an illustrator

Earlier in the project while I was building the base for the maps the senior designer had approached the American illustrator Christian Northeast to create the cover, chapter welcoming images, and other small elements through the book. DK are keen to approach creatives located in regions featured in the books for both their authentic local knowledge and also to support local artists.

The maps needed to echo and live alongside these illustrations. We commissioned a new texture directly from the illustrator to replace the original draft texture I had been using to maintain consistency. Unfortunately the returned file didn’t quite work with the maps as the patterns were not arbitrary enough. At the later stages of the project it was more important for Christian to focus on the larger illustrations than resupplying this element so I recreated the original temporary texture at a higher quality through vectorisation and distortion of a dotted grid.

I had also experimented with a parallel line texture to link closely to a theme in the supplied illustrations but it brought too much cartographic representation. It could be mistaken for a depiction of water or highlighted areas such as parks so we stuck with the dotted grid.

This was laid across the map and used a number of transparency styles to ensure it was visible but not obstructive.

Raising flags

Each sight featured within the book needed a distinct and clear label. In an attempt to link across to the road sign motifs regularly occurring in the illustrations and photographs I began with a style based on a road sign.

This became too restrictive as a number of sights were too close together to allow clear labelling. It also would have resulted in a page that was full of monotonous and perhaps overpowering boxes.

To push forward I looked at using illustrative flags at casual angles holding the names of the sights. It did still link to the illustrations but was a little too playful. It also limited the amount of space for longer names and/or page references. Another issue was it limited the space available to the co-publishers who might wish to translate labels resulting in longer names.

Discussions with the designer relating to typefaces resulted in a simplified box with the action element being an integrated arrow rather than a flag pole. The arrow links to the location precisely and could rotate around the rectangle to aid with placement. With a number of tests to check spacing and styles, the design was finalised and rolled out.

Drawing the maps

As with most maps produced for travel products at DK, the data source for the maps was Openstreetmap (OSM). The data used is actually quite sparse, with only the road, boundaries, urban area and water used as the we did not want the maps to be too busy. The map files were still cumbersome due to the large area of coverage for each state. California specifically was a challenge as the large number of roads within the Los Angeles area alone meant the map had to be simplified to allow Adobe Illustrator to display and edit the data. The file size would later cause a disruption to the technical checking stages.

Within the OSM data, each carriageway is represented by a line which splits at each interchange. Instead of a single line running through Los Angeles to show a road, the initial data used hundreds of separate elements.

Tiny Kansas

Kansas was an interesting anomaly within the book as the route only dips into the lower southeast corner of the state for a few miles. Building a chapter around relatively few entries was a challenge for the authors as well as cartographers. Thankfully there were enough interesting sights in this small segment of the route to fill a number of spreads and with a couple of large full page images it did not feel so restricted.

Cartographically it was a different matter. I was not going to be able to show the entire of Kansas and the shape of the route was the more vertical than horizontal. We experimented with a single page map instead of the usual double page but it looked unbalanced. The small area of the state was enlarged and we pulled the majority of the route onto the left hand page.

One of the styles we integrated into the maps was to include an opaque fill over areas that were not in the state in the chapter. This allows the route to continue and elements be visible in the following state for reference. For Kansas this opaque area was much larger than on other maps. To ensure consistency the depth of the transparency was lightened across all maps to ensure the map was pleasing to view.

Songs for the Road

Late in the project I was tasked with building a playlist to accompany the reader along their journey. This was a brilliant responsibility to be handed as I have always been incredibly passionate about discovering and sharing new (and old) music.

I have dedicated a separate article about this task.

The Importance of Checks

As the project progressed there were occasional changes to the entries when the text was edited and flowed into the inDesign files. These changes needed to be included on the maps. Another part of the process from a cartographic / spatial assessment was to ensure all imagery used was correct and current. This caught a few small image changes such as the recent relocation of the Gemini Giant which meant an image replacement was needed to be found . All the images which had a location mentioned in the caption or content would be checked. I would also check urban landscape images as these change at a rapid rate, the loss or addition of tall buildings is a common occurance and can date images. This has always been done for every project I have worked on.

One of the most critical parts of the project from a cartographic perspective is the checking stage. I passed all maps through the Delhi based cartographic team then through editorial and design teams. This is really important as map makers do risk checking a map cartographically rather than editorially so other team members can catch things we had passed or were awaiting confirmation of, the more eyes the better.

Once we approach the end of the project the map files are fed through an automated checking system to ensure all technical and structural elements of the files are as they should be to print correctly. The files in this book were so large that it would cause the checking program to crash. Files could take up to an hour to run through the system. With a book that had so many maps, the importance of keeping ahead of the deadlines was critical.

Once the files have been checked by the automated system they are combined with the rest of the digital files and checked again internally by a print specialist before being sent to the printers. We are then just waiting for a final proof from the printers to check before final approval. At this point it is disruptive and expensive to change so any amendments have to be essential. The misspelling of a small element unrelated to the route should have been picked up by the 5 or so check stages but will be left to be corrected at next edition at this point as the error makes no impact on the reader's use of th book.

We then wait for the first few copies of the book to be shipped by air to the office. The main book order is packed and sent to the distributors as required before being shipped to the retailers.

Tracking the Route from the Air

A few months later I was in the fortunate position of tracing Route 66 from the air from Illinois to Arizona . It was fascinating to follow the road as it headed west, knowing the history and stops we had included in the book. Recognising what city was coming next and waiting with excitement to see the Meteor Crater National Landmark toward the end of the journey - but this experience was the route without the journey.

It just left me eager to get behind the wheel and head west through rather than over the epic landscapes. To track the history and people as well as the deserts, mountains and forests.

Credits

The Senior Editor, Lucy Richards , with her team Lucy Sara-Kelly , Tijana Todorinovic , Catrina Conway took constant and detailed care of the book's content and were all more than able to help me with a slew of content based questions and comments.

Recent addition to the DK Travel department, Michael Curia as the senior designer was a beacon of enthusiastic inspiration throughout the project and was a joy to work with. Having a thousand ideas and welcoming everyone's suggestions. The design work itself was pulled to order by Bess Daley with picture research by Claire Guest .

As previously mentioned, the illustrator Christian Northeast was a keystone to the look and feel for the book and it was great to have this artist's work to align with even before the final illustrations were provided.

Buy it here !

ISBN: 978-0-2417-8474-7

Tools and Data:

Adobe Illustrator (main mapping)
Adobe Photoshop (texture experiments)
QGIS (openstreetmap data wrangling)
Google maps (data transfer)
Google Docs - Playlist cataloging
Spotify - Playlist building

Openstreetmap data

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Camino de Santiago - Mapping the walk

Mapping the Camino de Santiago ﻿

Pilgrimage Plotting and Planning

Getting Started

The book was always intended to be a celebration of this spiritual journey.

Design

Illustration

Map Research

The Routes

Brush Stokes

Credits:

Tools and Data:

Building a Playlist for a Road Trip

Building a playlist for a road trip

Personal Highlights from the Playlist ﻿

Route 66: Creating the Maps

Route 66: How We Made the Maps

Searching for the Book

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It’s a matter of orientation

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Gutters

Depicting the route

Textures

Working alongside an illustrator

Raising flags

Drawing the maps

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Tiny Kansas

Songs for the Road

The Importance of Checks

Tracking the Route from the Air

Credits

Tools and Data:

Mapping the Camino de Santiago

Personal Highlights from the Playlist