*** September-October Super Challenge: Mapping the Big Apple ***

[torstan]

For the next two months we'll be doing something a little different.

The Cartographers' Guild, in partnership with the Soho Gallery for Digital Art, presents Mapping the Big Apple. The challenge is to create a map inspired by New York. From early drafts of the streets of New Amsterdam, to the grid layout of Manhattan when Central Park was first proposed to the iconic New Yorker cover from March 29th, 1976 - New York has always inspired cartographers and artists with its streets and avenues. And not just cartographers. Manhattan has been destroyed in more ways that any other city. From the monster of Cloverfield to the ice age of The Day After Tomorrow - New York has taken it all. Now it's your task to take this iconic skyline and represent it in your own way.

In this challenge you must create a map inspired by New York. It must be letter sized (11" by 8.5") or larger and a minimum of 150dpi. Beyond that, your imagination can be your guide. It can be anything from an ant colony in central park to an airship shipping lane map with a terminus on top of the Empire State. As long as New York is involved in some way, your map will be eligible.

The contest will run until the 31st of October, after which there will be a round of public voting. The top 45 maps will be included in an exhibition at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art that will run in Manhattan from the 16th of November until the 12th of December. As part of the exhibition, the gallery will sell prints of the maps to the public, with 70% of the price after print costs going to the artists. The top three entries will get pride of place at the center of the gallery.

All successful entrants will get a special badge as recognition of their work being in the show. The artists who have the top three maps will get a golden compass. There will be more prizes during the two months that will be announced as we go forward - so keep an eye on this forum for other opportunities!

In contrast to previous challenges, each artist may submit up to three pieces.

If you're new to the site, each challenge entry must have it's own thread in this forum.
• The thread title should start "September-October Challenge: <Your map name here>"
• More WIPs generally make for more votes - don't be shy about putting up early sketches
• Use the attachment manager to put up WIP images (the paperclip at the top of the advanced editing window).
• Put ### Latest WIP ### before every thumbnail so that the thumbnail scraper can put together a thumbs page for the challenge.

A few other notes about the contest:
• All entries must be submitted on the Cartographers' Guild before the 31st of October.
• Ranking of the entries will be by public vote on the Cartographers' Guild.
• Each artist can enter up to three pieces
• To enter a piece you must be willing to sign a contract with the gallery that certifies that you are the copyright owner for the map, or that you have the right to show it and sell copies.
• The gallery show is conditional upon more than 45 entries. If fewer than 45 maps are entered into the competition the show will be dependent upon agreement of the gallery - so encourage your friends to enter. Please feel free to post this around the internet at other art sites you frequent. The more the merrier.

Good luck and happy mapping!

Here are 2 banners that you can use to promote the challenge around the internet. They are CC-NC-SA licensed, so that you can resize them and modify them for best use.
BannerSmaller600.jpg BannerSmaller.jpg

[mearrin69]

Oh, yeah. I am SO doing this. Nice idea!
M

Edit: This struck me the first time through but, after reading it again, I have to wonder if we can really get the 45+ entries needed to have 45 winning maps to display. I'll certainly try to do more than one and I'm sure others will too but schedules are tight and, man, that's a lot of maps Will try to spread the word if I can.

[torstan]

I'm pretty confident We've got a lot of members, and this is a great opportunity to get people to pull out some lovely work.

[mearrin69]

Well, I for one am starting on map #1 tonight. I've always wanted to blow up New York (in fiction only, so calm down DHS) so that's what I'm gonna do.
M

[Jaxilon]

I'm going out of town this weekend but I am so going to be brainstorming on this. I may even pull out of the lite challenge for this because I would really like to get more than one map done and I want whatever I get done to be as good as I can make it. Very cool opportunity!

[tilt]

sounds like a cool challenge - pulling out the big guns .. gotta buy a bigger computer for this - any limits on size upwards?

[geamon]

You wanna buy me a new one while you're at it Tilt so I can handle mapping with anything above 4000 pixels? Awesome challenge I wish i could participate.

[RjBeals]

wow. this is the real deal - very cool. I wish there were more hours in the day (damn that corporate america) - I may have to try this one out myself. I have family up in Northern Jersey, so I could possibly see a map of mine in a gallery !! Surely I can make the top 45 ?

[mearrin69]

Hmm. 8.5" x 11" at 150 dpi is 1,200 x 1,650 pixels. That's nowhere *near* 4,000 pixels. So. You're in! In fact, you *must* participate. You've been drafted. Didn't you hear the man? We need 45 gallery-quality maps ready in just a few weeks. Get mapping, bub.

Just kidding....but you really should give it a go!
M

[geamon]

I was over exaggerating but ya I know what you mean. It's that I don't have enough RAM I know it's the cause. I may in fact dabble. But I don't have any ideas yet.