Greetings!

[Aelfwin]

My name is Alvin Helms (Aelfwin is an Old English spelling), and I'm a Freelance Graphic Artist & Designer. Currently I reside in Dayton, Ohio (USA).

Most of my work has been for tabletop games (or for related magazines and books), which sometimes involves maps of one kind or another — from dungeons to towns to whole planets — and I greatly enjoy every opportunity to play Cartographer.

I spent my childhood with my nose buried in books, and my favorites were about mythology and ancient history, or old heroic sagas. And the best such books were always classically illustrated, with woodcuts and etchings (Gustave Doré was a personal favorite), and of course the occasional map — the more antique, arcane, and monster-infested, the better.

I marveled over books like that — not only the text (which I devoured), but over the very pages themselves, and even the binding. Those books inspired my career choice, my personal style, and even my favorite types of projects: Layout / Page Design, Typography, Illustration, Heraldry / Iconography, and Cartography.

Which is how I wound up here. And I imagine that nearly all of what I just said about myself is equally true of everyone else here, so there's nothing particularly special or unique about any of it.

But Hello anyway!


— A

[Tiana]

Hello. I am also a freelance graphic designer who just ended up inadvertently mapping a bunch and now I'm a freelance cartographer. I also spent my childhood buried in books until I got a computer at 13 (lucky me). But there are other journeys that have led people here too and many non-professionals who just love maps as a hobby. Welcome.

[DrWho42]

hello alvin! welcome to the guild