Yes, as GP said above. With regards to the Guild, I consider myself a Cartographer, but would never pass myself off as such in the realworld. In the Real World I consider myself an Telecommunications Technologist and and an Network Technichian (having gone to school and receiving my CCNA a year ago), I would not even call myself an Amateur Archeologist (what I went to university for) as I never received my degree and that was 25 years ago. There has been a LOT of discoveries and advancement since then (tho Kurt Von Danagen was still viewed as a flake even then)
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
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Am I a mapmaker? Yes. Am I a cartographer? Not nearly. Any idiot can expound BS but that doesn't make one a philosopher. The difference, to me, is in the artistry. Any boob with a piece of graph paper can make a map. A cartographer will take that same piece of graph paper and make a work of art.
John Grigsby
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Currently using Dundjinni, Photoshop CS3, and MapTool
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Thanks for the threadbump whtknt.
This reminded me of a post I came across a few days ago by Daniel Huffman, a great mapmaker and cartographer. (I first came across his name at boardgamegeek):
http://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress....n-cartography/
From the post:
-Rob A>Among all this discussion of “what is the role of art in cartography,” my proposition is this: cartography is a form of art. Art is not simply a component of cartography, alloyed with a liberal dose of science or technology or hackery. Art is what cartography is made of. It belongs on the same list as sculpture, as poetry, as painting.
Last edited by RobA; 09-21-2011 at 07:42 PM.
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Not only are art and science not exclusive, I'm not sure there's anything that doesn't involve both.
Anyway, to me the term "Cartographer", alone, implies mapping real locations. (I did some in the course of my studies, most notably my third year project that I posted here.)
As for myself, well I'm not very artistic. For me, the actual map is perhaps less important than the fictional world that is mapped. I probably won't create something visually stunning, but I can hope to make a planet that's scientifically thought-out. (Most of my work is for sci-fi rather than fantasy settings.)
I am a geology nerd.
Cartography overlaps science and art. Maps are scientific and artistic, though with different focuses. It isn't that maps employ science - like he said, so does pottery. But while pottery employs chemistry it does not aim to represent chemistry. Maps employ science but also represent it. Maps are based on the idea of representing scientific data visually - that data includes surveys, human geography, biology, climate, etc. Fantasy mappers simply imagine such data instead of obtaining real world data. Really, the bubble of art should overlap science, with cartography in purple.
Very interesting thread! I'm quite the roockie in here, but I have to agree with Ascencion's post in the first page.
This kinda gets me into the topic of "artist" vs "Illustrator" thou this is not the right place to discuss this
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