Typography (cartography)

Typography, as an aspect of cartographic design, is the craft of designing and placing text on a map in support of the map symbols, together representing geographic features and their properties. It is also often called map labeling or lettering, but typography is more in line with the general usage of typography. Throughout the history of maps to the present, their labeling has been dependent on the general techniques and technologies of typography. For most of the history of Cartography, the text on maps was hand drawn, and Calligraphy was an essential part of the skill set of the cartographer. This did not change with the advent of printing in the 15th Century, because the dispersed placement of the text did not lend itself to the use of Movable type. Instead, printed maps, including text, were drawn, engraved, and printed using the Intaglio or "copperplate" process. It was typical for the cartographer to not label the map himself, but to leave it to the master engraver. Text styles frequently changed with the tastes of the time, but were often very ornate, especially in non-map elements such as the title. The development of Photoengraving, Zincography, and wax engraving in the mid-19th Century significantly changed the production of maps and their labels, enabling the addition of printed type to maps using stamps, but map lettering still required a great deal of skill; this remained the state of the art until the development of Photolithography in the 1950s. The photographic platemaking process meant that type could be produced on paper in a variety of ways, producing map labels of the same quality as book text. That said, as late as 1960, Arthur H. Robinson still advised new cartographers to be skilled in freehand lettering, and mechanical lettering tools were still in common usage through the 1980s, encouraging a very simplistic functional style over any aesthetic character. A significant turning point was "Die Anordnung der Namen in der Karte", a 1962 essay (re-published in English in 1975) by Swiss cartographer Eduard Imhof, considered the greatest European cartographer of his day.