This map was one of 5 period-style maps commissioned for a family history photo book detailing a grandfather’s trip to Germany in 1897-1898. The grandather’s cross-Atlantic journey, as well as 3 side-trips taken in Germany were all fastidiously documented in his journal, which formed the basis for the project.

This map documents a trip the grandfather took to the historic German state of Schwarzburg and the Thuringian Forest mountains. I wanted to primarily showcase the grandfather’s own map he drew of the Schwarzburg area and the sites he visited. His map and key were drawn on separate pages in the journal and the scanned images of those pages showed some ink that had bled through from the underside of the page. So I used Photoshop to clean up the map, isolate the text and position both elements vertically as one unit. Back in Illustrator, I added a whisper of a drop shadow to the inset to give the impression of it being an artifact placed next to the main overview map. The terrain itself was first rendered in Eduard, then stylized further in Photoshop. I also rasterized some tree cover data to add forested areas to the map. I really love the way the rivers ended up with a watercolor type effect. I referenced historic German railway maps to best represent the active primary railroads at the time, and left roadways faint to leave emphasis on the railroads.

This map measures 15”w x 10”h printed and was designed to fold out from the book, with a quote from the grandfather’s journal on the “cover” of the fold-out page.