Arthur H. Robinson Quotes

The author took the only course in cartography available to him in 1937; it must have been fairly typical of the few being offered in America: lectures based largely on personal experiences were supplemented by a relatively few assigned readings, and by Deetz and Adam’s Elements of Map Projection. No textbook was used because there was none in English.

In an important sense, all cartography is an art in that it is representational and that operation always involves some degree of abstraction. Geographical reality is infinitely complex and its complete depiction is quite impossible; elements must be left out and intricacies modified as a consequence of the fundamental requirement of information reduction. All maps, therefore, are abstractions and the decisions involved in the process are artistic in the sense that many of them must be made subjectively by the cartographer.

Good design looks right. It is simple (clear and uncomplicated). Good design is also elegant, and does not look contrived. A map should be aesthetically pleasing, thought provoking, and communicative

The design process involves a series of operations. In map design, it is convenient to break this sequence into three stages. In the first stage, you draw heavily on imagination and creativity. You think of various graphic possibilities, consider alternative ways...

Maps enable man to rise, so to speak, above his immediate range of vision, and contemplate the salient features of larger areas.

Happiest day of my life, was when the Defense Department took down its Mercator... I started learning how to make maps while on an Army payroll. So getting to see mine in the Pentagon, flanked by generals, is a little like being a prophet who is finally honored by his hometown.

Our experience in the Cartographic Section of the [OSS Map] Division clearly showed that the creation of a special purpose map was frequently as much a problem in design as it was a problem in substantive compilation.

I started with a kind of artistic approach... I visualized the best-looking shapes and sizes. I worked with the variables until it got to the point where, if I changed one of them, it didn't get any better... [only then I] figure out the mathematical formula to produce that effect.

While doing illustrative work for Roderick Peattie, from him I learned the value of the unorthodox.

Today most maps are printed by lithography.

There is also a considerable tendency to define the subject as a kind of meeting place of science and art. This is exemplified by Eckert. He pleads for artistic imagination and intuition in cartographic portrayal and claims that the inter-action of such talents with scientific geography produces the aesthetic map. There is no question about the importance of imagination and new ideas, but it is equally important that significant processes be objectively investigated, whether it be the visual consumption of a graphic technique or a process in geomorphology. It can perhaps best be approached by a comparison of the aims, techniques involved, and the results accomplished by each activity

If we then make the obvious assumption that the content of a map is appropriate to its purpose, there yet remains the equally significant evaluation of the visual methods employed to convey that content.

Take an orange and draw something on it -- say, a human face. Now carefully remove the peel, trying to keep it in one piece, and flatten it against your kitchen table. You'll see that in making a two-dimensional object out of a round one, something has to give. Either the face gets distorted and looks all 'mushed out,' or in flattening the peel, it breaks into segments, dividing the face as well into several parts. A cartographer chooses between a series of those kind of lesser-of-two-evils alternatives.

I decided there ought to be another way of balancing out the various distortions without doing it mathematically.

The development of design principles based on objective visual tests, experience, and logic; the pursuit of research in the physiological and psychological effects of color; and investigations in perceptibility and readability in typography are being carried on in other fields... such a movement in cartography cannot fail to materialize