The Atlas of Design is a showcase of how beautiful maps can be – while also being useful and informative. Now a Metro-created map has earned a spot in that showcase, thanks to intelligent design and extensive community input.
Published by the nonprofit North American Cartographic Information Society, the Atlas of Design's second volume, released this month, features 32 beautiful maps covering a range of subjects, purposes and authors.
Among them: Metro's ¡Vámonos! map series, created in 2012 to help Spanish-speaking youth in Hillsboro, Cornelius and Forest Grove find safe, fun routes for walking and biking to local destinations.
The maps were created by Metro cartographer Matthew Hampton and independent designer Ryan Sullivan. But the community really made the maps successful, Hampton said.
The project team worked extensively with local planners and organizations that serve Hispanic residents in western Washington County, including Centro Cultural, Adelante Mujeres and Hillsboro Futsal, to identify what they wanted in a map and design it to suit their needs.
"The process helped focus the design," Hampton said, "helping us identify points of interest and routes that link places people want to go."
Then-Metro staffer Maria Davila Bores helped arrange the outreach process for Metro's Regional Travel Options program. "The only way you're going to get feedback from the community is to knock on their doors and engage them," she said.
Sullivan agreed that the community-driven process made the maps stronger, helping them strike the right balance between being attractive and useful to the community they are intended to serve. "I'm proud of the way it came together," he said. "It's bold, colorful and cool."
The ¡Vámonos! maps feature bright colors and attractive, simple icons.
Engaging children and teenagers was an important design goal for the maps, Sullivan noted. He pointed out how the map's colors and place icons are simple, clear and bright, including an unusual fluorescent orange line to highlight the best walking routes in the communities. Sullivan said the team hoped that the maps would be attractive enough that kids might even put them on their walls, perhaps inspiring whole families to discover routes they could walk or bike together.
Hampton said that the mapmaking process was a learning experience for everyone, including the design team. "It was great to learn about walkable routes even in a more auto-driven community," he said, "and to help more people discover ways to walk and bike that they may not have known about before."
"This area was thirsty for maps," Hampton added.
Davila Bores, who now works with the city of Hillsboro's parks department, expressed pride in how the process came together. "I think we nailed it," she said. "By the time we had the printed maps, people were very excited because they felt like they owned the project."
Sullivan said the ¡Vámonos! maps reflect what he loves most about designing maps. "Maps have a amazing ability to connect people with the larger world around us and to inspire and challenge us to think differently about it, including things we didn't know and places we weren't aware of," he said. "The challenge for a designer is to make them both functional and beautiful."
Metro has distributed roughly 75,000 ¡Vámonos! maps through community events and partnerships with organizations and businesses that serve Spanish-speaking residents in Washington County.
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