Browse Items (88 total)

What it is:
The pink layer primarily captures the southern landmass that stretches horizontally across the bottom of the map. The map is outlined in a uniform solid black line and presumably traces the coastline/border of the southern landmass. It…

What it is:
The yellow layer depicts the landmass of the European continent, as well as the base color for Japan, the compass in the middle, mountain ranges in Europe and South America, and various labels around the map. The yellow color also…

What it is:
The red layer includes the Asian landmass, the outline of Japan, the sun, the northern star, two rivers, several base colors for labels and colorings on the characters. There are several island groups, in what might be the East/South…

What it is:
Both the Americas and what might be construed as Africa (Libya) are portrayed by the blue layer. This colored layer also includes mountain ranges in Asia and Terra Australis. I am most intrigued by one particular mountain range that…

Because my map is in German, there is much about it that I still don't understand. That's frustrating on some level, but it has also allowed me to employ the map-studying technique of ignoring text to focus on the visual components of the map and…

One of the things that stood out most immediately to me about this map—again, both visually and interpretively—was the abundance of fortifications and walls of different types on display. Visually, the darkly rendered lines of the walls give them a…

Creating this layer probably made me most aware of the choices and labor involved in creating this map. When I set out to create a layer that would illustrate inclusion of trees and what appears to be cultivated land on the map, my eye had primarily…

In some ways, this layer is least important visually, but it also holds a key to my map's purpose and the interesting way that it blends genres. This layer contains a couple of graphic design elements—compass rose and arrows indicating the river…

This layer includes the 12 illustrations of people from different cultures in the map. The images are grouped by region and labeled with Japanese characters. I believe these depictions represent the desire of the mapmaker to make sense of the…

This layer features colored depictions of the continents included in the map. I chose this layer to focus on the Japanese perspective of the globe, which includes very basic depictions of the continents. I noticed nearly every land mass, including…