City of LA Gets Into the Bad Map Game

By Eric Richardson
Published: Monday, April 30, 2007, at 08:52PM

Eric Richardson

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It’s surprising how many bad maps are out there. Every so often I run across a map of Downtown that’s particularly egregious, and I just have to take the time to point it out here.

Today’s map has a little twist in that it’s actually produced by the City of LA. These massive Downtown districts maps have shown up on a handful of advertising kiosks over the past couple of months. The one I took pictures of is on the side of our favorite APT at 5th/Hill.

It’s hard to summarize my problems with this one in just one paragraph, so go ahead and click Read More to get the details after the jump.

Ok, let's start with the mess that is the Civic Center shot above. Text collides with icons. Icons collide with lines. It's like a five car pile-up in cartographic form.

Second, it's the Arts District not the Artists District. Ed gave a good history of that name recently. There aren't really that many districts Downtown: go ahead and get them right.

Third: "Little Tokyo District"? It's Little Tokyo. That's it.

Fourth, take a close look at those district icons. If I had to guess I'd say they grabbed them off a website and blew them up at least 400%. The pixels are quite visible on such a massive print.

Fifth, there's at least one straight-up typo. That's just sloppy.

Bottom line: These maps are pretty sad. All it really takes is a little common sense to do something better, or perhaps to give a call to someone who can.

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Comments

kenarch writes:

Yeah, "Collge Street" is pretty ugly, but so are upside-down street names. That is a real graphics faux-pas. Hmmm. Wonder if anything connected with that APT is going to ever really work. Bureaucracy's finest moment.

BTW - saw the big Downtown wall map Cartifact made as it was put up in the Santee Court office after I went over to the little market there. Nice job. Cartifact should perhaps get into the business of making and selling such posters to the public in general (unless you already do)... in which case, how can I purchase one?

# on May.01.2007 AT 02:05 AM

e; writes:

Ken: You can buy a Cartifact wall map through the Central Library Bookstore or through Geographia in Burbank. I think the Library just has the flat poster one, whereas Geographia has flat or folded (and may be cheaper... not sure on that).

I'd advise waiting a couple weeks, though. The brand new map is just going out to print.

# on May.01.2007 AT 06:13 AM

kenarch writes:

Thanks, Eric.

Maybe you'd want to check to see if Distant Lands bookstore in Pasadena would be interested in carrying it as well. That is one of my favorite stores, and remember, for many of the tourists that come here, Southern CA is a "distant land".

# on May.01.2007 AT 12:35 PM

LA City Nerd writes:

The map you're talking about in this post appears to be the maps provided not by the City, but by the Downtown BIDs (yes, multiple BIDs). Those icons are the ones that are used on all the way-finding signs which were not installed by the City but by the BIDS. That's my understanding at least. Ask the DCBID - you've got a relationship with them, right?

# on May.02.2007 AT 07:34 AM

Eric Richardson writes:

No, these are definitely from the City. They have the City seal on them and no BID identification. Also, the BIDs don't make maps -- they come to Cartifact for that. I'm sure these are from the City's GIS department.

# on May.02.2007 AT 08:41 AM

LA City Nerd writes:

e - If these are City signs, then they were done perhaps by a Neighborhood Council. Your buddy Lance Oishi would probably know where the maps came from since street furniture is under his purview. I have a hard time believing the City would print such a bad map - the City has plenty of mappers and engineers who make maps - they wouldn't have to create something with so many errors and with such poor quality. Not in my experience, at least.

# on May.04.2007 AT 06:27 AM

Eric Richardson writes:

This past weekend I noticed one of the maps that had drooped back from the glass a bit. Tucked at the bottom, normally hidden in the frame, was a Department of Public Works logo.

# on May.15.2007 AT 10:25 AM

Justin writes:

In case you are wondering, you can buy the Cartifact map online:

http://www.maps.com/map.aspx?cid=22&pid=16703&nav=MS

Also, here is info at Cartifact's website about the map.

http://www.cartifact.com/publications/dtla/

# on Sep.26.2007 AT 01:02 PM