Sweet Unfolding

A new advertiser has found her way here via Project Wonderful:

The Sweet Unfolding offers a collection of wedding favors, gifts, and accessories. The fact that they want to advertise on a map memorabilia website, only further confirms their high class and good taste. I'm guessing they like maps too, as they use them in several of their product images...

Free Gas? Your Choice

During a recent stay at a hotel, I noticed a poster for their summer promotion. Make three hotel stays at their hotels and get a $50 gas card. The advertising material is designed to look like some sort United States board game:



While I'm not endorsing Choice Hotels (although I did have a pleasant stay), I do like hotels that use maps in their advertising.

The game looks about as interesting as Candyland, but perhaps with that $50 gas card, I could afford one of those "Land o' the Free" road trips...


#233

Map Ads Get Their Point Across

Two recent ads seen in magazines and newspapers:



"The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. Our ultimate aim is to halt global warming. Specifically we are educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable."

The use of a "word cloud" globe emphasizes how all can be a part of solving the problem of climate change.



You might just have treasure buried somewhere in your home. Do you have old savings bonds? Cash them in! But who would store their old savings bonds in the garage?


#221

ericsson map

Another old example of body maps in advertising:



"old" because I saved this ad in 1999.

"old".... because, well just look at the clunky old cell phone...

Say Yes! to Michigan

The most anthropomorphic of the United States is Michigan, with its lower peninsula shaped like a mittened hand. (The second most anthropomorphic state is Florida... but I'm not going there...) In much the same way that Texas is in love with its shape, and likes to use it everywhere in design, Michigan loves to flaunt its handy shape... In addition, Michiganians are fortunate to always carry a map of their state.

Unless of course, you happen to live in Michigan's upper peninsula... then you have to do something like this:

In the late 1980's to early 1990's, the Michigan Department of Tourism used as its slogan, "Say Yes! To Michigan." It was a silly slogan, accompanied by an insipid jingle (that is stuck in my head as I type). I was living in Michigan at the time, so I don't know how widespread the campaign was in other states, but the emphasis in-state was to encourage folks to spend their vacation money at home. Without a doubt, Michigan is a "Water Winter Wonderland" (an even earlier slogan) with much to offer to the outdoors enthusiast.

Meijer is a supermarket chain, founded in Michigan and based in the midwest. In conjunction with the Michigan Travel Bureau, Meijer produced a series of state travel maps and events brochures. I saved as many examples as I could find...

Apple and Potatoe Worlds

Kevin Van Aelst's color photographs "include every day foods and objects: bread, doughnuts, crackers, candy, floor tile, sweaters, and lint. These simple materials are arranged into shapes and patterns inspired by formulas found in science and mathematics, such as fractal geometry, chaos theory, biology and chemistry."

And geography!

Apple Globe, 2007, Digital C-Print




_________________________________________

Discovering that crunchy map reminded me to pull out and scan this advertisement I saved from a restaurant industry magazine back in the 1990's.

McCain Foods Limited, is the world's largest producer of frozen french fries.

Sadly, neither of these works of art can be found in any museum. Hopefully they ended up on someone's plate...

Absolut World

As reported in La Plaza, a Los Angeles Times blog about Latin America:

Mexico reconquers California? Absolut drinks to that!

"The latest advertising campaign in Mexico from Swedish vodka maker Absolut promises to push all the right buttons south of the U.S. border, but it could ruffle a few feathers in El Norte."



"In an Absolut World"... Mexico didn't lose half their territory in a war with the United States in 1848.

Apparently there are a few Americans getting bent out of shape over this... I say, get a sense of humor... you won the war, remember?



Thanks to Jerad for the heads up!

More Maps in Ads

As noted earlier, maps in advertising, actually maps as an element of design, caught my eye, and got me started on this collection.

Over the years, I have saved ads that caught my eye. Here are a few more:

Put the photos together into the shape of the continental United States, and you tell your potential customers they can call anywhere, without reading the words.

From the beltway, all roads lead to the capital...


Could it be... maps?

Maps in Advertising

As I mentioned in my first post, finding this ad in a magazine really caught my eye:



Obviously, it is not a literal "road map", but the metaphor of a road map is that the customers of this Lexis-Nexis product will be able to find their way through complex information sources, without getting lost. Anyone who has ever used a road map to navigate through unknown territory should be able to relate to this ad, especially if you're the type that doesn't like to ask for directions...

When I saw this ad (1991?) I was not so familiar with the Lexis-Nexis corporation, or Ohio geography. So, I didn't appreciate at the time that they were using an Ohio road map. The floppy disk map includes Dayton where their U.S. corporate headquarters are located.


A map of the world, or a globe, are other common themes for advertising:

I guess it wouldn't be Christmas without a Bacardi drink



Obviously the advertisers are not using the globe as a way to indicate which planet they are on...

CS First Boston is rather transparent in their intentions

Perhaps they want to indicate their "global presence"...

Of course, MCI is now part of Verizon

or that their product is useful to everyone on the planet...

Does mean that CIBA is part of the Flat Earth Society?
and sometimes, it's just silly.

An Everlasting Piece, 2000, directed by Barry Levinson. Has anyone ever seen this film?

Story of a Cartophiliac

I have loved maps for as long as I can remember.

My father had a nice collection of atlases and a World Book Encyclopedia. I can remember spreading them out across the living room floor, studying them for hours. The World Book had multiple maps for each continent, showing flora, fauna a minerals of each continent, in addition to the topographical and political boundaries maps. He had world atlases, American atlases and historical atlases. The historical atlases were fascinating; to see the development of nations progress from page to page.

I made my own maps. I drew a map of my neighborhood in order to chart out the most efficient path for Halloween Trick-or-treating. I made up my own maps of Europe and Asia to imagine how Alexander's empire might have grown and developed if he hadn't died so young. Before I understood what global warming was, I drew a map of the United States after sea levels had risen, covering most of Florida, and forcing the capital to move from Washington, DC, to Columbus, Ohio...

In junior high school, a buddy and I, inspired by J.R.R. Tokien and other fantasy authors, created our own imaginary worlds. First they were the "ant countries" in our back yards. Later, realms of pure imagination with not only maps, but histories, flags, currency, and newspapers. In college, when I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons, I had a ready-made fantasy world in which to place the adventures when I became a Dungeon Master.

While I have pretty much stopped drawing my own maps (short of a doodle here and there) I have continued to collect them. Postcards, stamps, coffee mugs, posters, etc. But one day while perusing an information professional journal of one sort or another, I came across this ad:

What a clever idea! To use a road map as the cover of one of those old (not so old then) 5.25 inch floppy disks! The purpose of the map not to show a route, or how to find the store, but to invoke a feeling of adventure or the freedom of the road. Like any good advertising, it evokes an emotional result. I was so fascinated by this idea that I began looking for more like it.

In the entries that follow this one I will share other ads with "map as design element", as well as postcards, stamps and other odds and ends of map emphemera. I hope you enjoy it, or at least find it mildly amusing. If so, please share your comments, or links to other interseting map memorabilia online.

Who am I?

I am a librarian at the Main Branch of medium-sized city public library somewhere in the midwest. My big hobby, besides maps, is boardgaming. At some point, I have no doubt that I will blog about maps in boardgames. If you really need to know who I am, or get in touch with me, see contact info.