You're listening to episode 746 of A Very Spatial Podcast, September 15th, 2024. Hello, and welcome to A VerySpatial Podcast. I'm Jesse. I'm Sue. I'm Barb. And this is Frank. And this week, we're going to be talking to Dan Coe and that case of the Atlas of Design series. And yeah, that'll be a good talk in just a little bit. But of course, of course, of course, You know, there's other things last week. We talked about don't forget about earth science week.
If you are planning to do GIS day things, we were already invited just this past week after we did the last interview to our counties or cities. GIS day, apparently Sue didn't get that email, so I'll forward that to you. So keep in mind that, you know, it's now time to have those things planned because we're only, what, two months out from GIS day and Geography Awareness Week little less, actually, I think by the time most people listen to this, it'll be slightly less. Or, well after.
So that's, that's a thing to keep in mind, that it's coming up. And I don't know, any other housekeeping? The new conference season has begun, both for the fall abstracts and getting stuff in for spring and summer conferences, and also a round of conferences this fall. So, check schedules. So I'm saying that at the beginning even though that we used to do just events at the end, but just overall, it's that time of year. SEDAAG is in your state this year, right? That's correct.
Yeah. Yeah, so in the geography field for AAG, the regional meetings tend to be in the fall but also abstracts and things are due for various conferences coming up next year. So can I just tell my pet peeve? With, with SEDAAG specifically, it seems to be rampant with SEDAAG and maybe just because I'm in that region. So I get, I see that news more than any others, but all of the regional ones tend to say things like it's in Greenville, South Carolina, right?
Yes. And I don't, I don't remember what school is there, but that's essentially hosting it. But all like the flyer and stuff like that, come to Greenville and, you know, enjoy the thing and, and see the conference and, and check out this school and all this other stuff. And I'm just like, you know, for a bunch of geographers, we have this desire on those things to not put the state down. It's not anywhere on the flyer.
Which, there's a Greenville, North Carolina, that's actually Greenville in most states. Yeah, there's Greenville in most states, but the Greenville, North Carolina also hosts I know, you know, all that really where this institution is located at in the state and all the rest of it. Don't always know that. No, that doesn't get green. Greenville, North Carolina, Greenville, Alabama, and, you know, I think perhaps maybe it's a bad habit. We pick up from the referencing format.
So we use for a lot of the geography journals where for books, you just put the publication city. Not state and you're just like, okay, which is which is a fairly recent thing. You did used to do that No other formats you do it in. Yeah, and the modified Chicago version that we tend to use Yeah, but I'm saying I don't think it was modified all that long ago It's been that way since I so at least for 20 some years Oh, see, I don't remember being that.
I, I can't reremember, I mean, I, you didn't used to use that political finance. I grew up with ML MLA format and you would have to put New York, New York, New York, or Toronto Canada or something like that. But it was a bit of a shock to me when moving to geography, like in New York. And I'm like, well, I'm a good thing. It's or London. You know, like, well, good thing most people know where that is. You know, there's, there's publishing companies in London, Ontario.
I mean, come on, there, there is more in UK there. There are, but so there didn't, cause there used to be a way that you could clarify that it was optional. And if you didn't think people would know you were supposed to put a describer, that is probably true. But again, in the format that we use, I know, well, that's not again, you came from history. I did cover history, too. Maybe I'm remembering history, but that was it, right?
If, in fact, in London, Connecticut, I think actually there were books that were published there, but you did, You were required, if it was not the one that people would assume, like New York, New York, or London, UK, or, I don't know, Chicago, somewhere else, or something, you were supposed to put something else after it to explain that. Well, the silly part, though, right, is, is it all that important? Really? I mean, whenever Hey, it's a geography podcast. This is important.
Like, you know, in the day where you literally got a piece of paper or you went and got microfiche or whatever, and you would say, Oh, I need to find where the publishing company is because I need to copy this article and I need to write to them all that stuff like that. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. But You just Google it. I mean, you can Google the title and just, it'll go, here's the article and give us 29 99, you can have it for a day.
Yeah. I mean, what's the purpose of you and having the whole reference now? Just toss the DOI in there and you're good to go. You know, I actually, I'm not against it as somebody who absolutely hates. Tediousness of citation at the end, like getting all that format, it seems to take a really long time. So I'd be all cool with, I like it when I can go to Google scholar and it's just there. I can do a copy paste, copy paste. Yes. But the problem is when it's wrong from Google scholar.
Yes. Or, or other source. Or when you can't get your DOI to get generated, if you're like an, like an editor in a journal, like me, and for whatever reason, it's like, nope, not doing it, not doing it. Not going to do it no matter how many times you ask me.
But. The original point of course being that if you are a regional AAG in the United States, or I'm assuming this is less of an issue outside of the United States, anyone in the United States that's running a conference, stick the darn state name in there. It's not gonna kill you. It's not, you know, it, it, it helps. It helps for those of us that don't actually know all the places in the country. For those of you who are still with us after the rant the interview will be coming soon.
First and only up in the news the new Galileo satellites Numbers 29 and 30 have been declared operational launched recently declared operational. It means that two of the three segments are now completely filled and there are new satellites launching in just a few weeks. So we're, we're getting close to that Galileo being fully implemented in terms of having the minimum number of satellites. Needed for the constellation. I mean, it works.
You can get a Galileo receiver and use it, but it does not have the full constellation up there by any means. It's been a long road, though, so that would be, that would be exciting. Had to move countries, had to, you know, all kinds of things. Yeah, see, that's what I thought when I was reading that. It said how close they were to done. I'm like, oh, this is super exciting. It's, you know, near the finish line. Almost there. As they say, yeah.
Also, you know, I can't, every time we talk about the Galileo satellites, I can't help but think of the Indigo Girls. They have a great song. You should listen to it. Separate thing. In Galileo, by the way, in case you didn't get that context. And in the web corner, the 2024 fall foliage map from the SmokeyMountains. com is out for the U. S. It's a prediction map for, for what the fall foliage is going to look like this year.
It's really interesting because they use a lot of different data sources, including asking the public, you know, right now, if you are seeing any changes to take pictures and submit them to them so that they can use it to update their predictions, it's pretty cool. If you are. Looking to do any tourism related to fall foliage, or if you're planning a festival to get to know where the real true colors are going to be.
And if you're wanting to visit West Virginia, according to the prediction map, you'll want to be coming in October, which is not a big shock. That's pretty normal for West Virginia. But it is neat to know that the area that, you know, oftentimes gets been a bunch of touristy stuff on the sort of Eastern side of things. It's going to be out of peak season a lot quicker than some people may predict.
And peak looks like it's going to be about, I think about a week earlier than normal from what I'm seeing. Yeah. Normally West Virginia, you know, you want to be going through your little mountain drives mid October to, you know, third week of October somewhere in that ballpark, you're pretty okay. You can usually get a nice, you know, drive in that space. It looks like, you know, ratchet that up a week by about. The third week, a lot of it's going to be over.
Yeah. Similar to what happened with the cherry blossom festival. The timing is off now for a lot of things. That's it for the news. Stick around for our interview with again, Nat Case and Dan Coe, who are Nat is the series editor and Dan is one of the issue editors of volume seven of the Atlas of design, which we've not talked about too much, I think since the first or second issue, but yeah, they've been going on an every other year schedule. So check it out.
I'm happy to be joined today by Nat Case and Dan Coe, who are working with NACIS on a little bit of a project. Something's been going on for a few years, the Atlas of Design. So thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having us. Yeah. And before we get into the most recent edition that's about to come out in October I'm Dan Coe. Give us kind of an idea about the Atlas of Design. It's been a little while since we've talked about it and talked to anybody about it on the podcast.
So just to remind people what it is. Sure. So the, the, this is we're working on volume seven Atlas of Design as a biennial publication comes out every two years. So the first edition, if you can do the math is 2012 volume one came out in 2012 and it came out of. Kind of inspired by a book that came out for a couple editions, the Cartography Design Annual. It was out in, it was 2008 and 2009, that Nick Springer, Springer Cartographic, produced.
And then, I'm not sure about, it was a hand off, or it was inspired by, or whatever the case was, but Tim Wallace and, and Daniel Huffman kind of spearheaded the first volume of the Atlas of Design as a NACIS project. It's always been a volunteer, the editorial staff is always an all volunteer project as is NACIS is pretty much an all volunteer organization. And it's a different editorial team every two years.
I took on, this is, I'm Nat Case, and I took on the role of series managing editor last year to provide some continuity and some long term planning and projecting. But I was on the editorial team for as long as five and six. And Dan came on for Volume 7. So that's the thumbnail history of where the volume came from. Now I have Issues 1 and 2, Volumes 1 and 2. And then somehow have missed the other ones. Luckily they're still available, some of them at least online.
So I'll have to go back and get those. But it, it really is kind of this Different take on cartography. Not so much, it's not so much that it's a separation from traditional cartography. It's just about bringing together the different parts of cartography that, you know, in our day to day web map, GIS, all of these things that we're talking about a lot of times with students and new professionals into the field, having this kind of touchstone to what.
Cartography is, in addition to something to just convey data is really nice. You know, when, when you talk about the just convey data, that there was, there was a phrase that was, I don't know how common it was, but it certainly irked Daniel Huffman, especially in her, some of us too, that back when it started, which is the idea of the data that design is just a matter of making data pretty. The idea that, that it's superficial and an add on, you don't really need it.
The important thing is the, is the data. And I think one of the points of when it started, and it still is kind of a point is that it's not an add on that, that the design of whatever map you're doing is part of what makes it a map and not just, you know, run a bit of data thrown at the screen that's integral to, to what a map is.
So exploring what that means I mean, Dan, you can speak to this more for this, this current issue, but the, the way that we, we process the Atlas, the way that it gets created, we open it up to entries for anyone and we ask entrants, well, what does design mean to you and the both the judges and the, the, the contributors are given more or less a free field to define design. However, they're, they want to define it. And that's part of the point is to give.
A range of what design means to you, what design means to the judges. And so we come up with both some things that are just really classic mapping maps that are just really beautiful examples of what you think a map should be. And people thinking weird ideas of what a map could be. And it's that mix that makes, makes the Atlas special. Dan, is that square?
Yeah. The thing I love about this project is that, you know, we have 33 maps in this new volume and each one of them is telling a completely different story. And that, you know, that idea of just design just being sort of the aesthetic of a map I think is, is a little bit disingenuous in that design is how the maps communicate the stories that they're telling and each one does it in, you know, a relatively unique way across the board.
And there's, there's a really wide variety of maps in this new volume that we're pretty excited about. You know, the ability to take, again, whether it's the technology perspective or the hand drawn perspective, and be able to tell a story is the fundamental of mapping cartography. You know, we have to have the data, but being able to understand what someone's trying to tell you with that data is the goal.
And just, you know Throwing things on on a map which Sometimes we have to do to do things quickly and get them out the door doesn't really convey everything so whenever you can take a minute and take a little bit deeper and make the story. The the key is is really important. So can you talk a little bit about how some of the choices in volume 7? Kind of you know approach design. Yeah, that's a great question. There's there's a again a wide variety.
You You know, a few, there's several that pop to mind there's a map by, by Ken Fields that shows snowfall in California. I just have to say that's longing fruit to, to choose Ken Fields from the beginning.
Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I can't say it's one of my favorite of all these maps, but it's a, it's an excellent example of you know, using kind of a novel idea, he used these Sort of snowflake photographs from the late 1800s that are public domain kind of as, as a hexagon symbol in his maps to show the amount of snowfall across California in one recent winter. And, you know, just the, the, the, the method of delivery with that design is just so perfect. And even beyond, you know, the.
Using the snowflakes, the lightness and darkness of the snowflakes showing different levels of, of snowfall is just, it's the way he does it is really, really nice. And I'm not doing it justice with my words here. You've got to see the map to. Kind of get the full understanding, but that's a really great example. There's, there's a lot of other ones.
There's a map of Vienna that is just so beautifully designed in the style of the Vienna secessionist movement and artistic movement in the late 18 hundreds. And you know, it's almost literary in the way that, that the map is designed in one side is the, the physical, you know, the map of the city streets and the other side tells about the secessionist movements and the different places that are shown on the map. So it's almost like a self guided tour. In this beautifully designed map.
So those are, those are two of the 33 that kind of bubble up to the top for me. But, you know, beyond that, I'm, I'm more of a physical cartographer, so I like terrain and things like that. There's a great map of, of Aotearoa and New Zealand that it, just the texture and the bathymetry in the map is what really speaks to me. And, and, you know, not only showing the parts of the. Country that are on lands, but the surrounding bathymetry in the ocean is just really beautifully done.
And the way the map is designed. Yeah, it really speaks to me as, as sort of the types of maps that I like as well. There's perhaps one of my favorite maps that we included is called the spirits of Scotland in the Atlas. And it takes a really novel approach to. Labeling and it's a map of distilleries across Scotland and the way that the labeling is done is in this really whimsical sort of swirly form that I've never seen done before.
And it works really well for the subject matter and the overall design of the map. That's one that, that I really love. Yeah. It's one of those that I hadn't really thought about the fact that it's a very Celtic swirl. It's really well done. Yeah. That spirits of Scotland map is by Milana Globova. And the New Zealand map that I mentioned earlier is by Ian Rees.
Yeah. One of the things that I, when you were talking here about design being superficial or being integral to it, one of the pieces when you talk about turning out, you know, quick and dirty maps, cause you just got to use a template. That template is designed, you know, even it may not be your design. It may be that it's a, it's a preexisting set of symbols instead of, but someone has designed. How it looks is still designed.
And I think one of the things that's striking about looking through the maps is how much design it's like there's design that then you see what it looks like. And then there is, there is design after you've gotten all the data in place and sort of finishing design to make it, make it clean up the last bit. Design is a back and forth. I think that's one of the things that shows up as you look through. It's a process, which means that it's not just, it's not just one stage in your map production.
It, it, it, when you start out, you have a design. It may not be one that fits and you have to. You know, you have to just move, move layers up and down and just colors, just styles and so forth. So what shows up in the Atlas as obviously beautiful design, it's always a back and forth. There's always a sense of, you start out with a sense of how it's supposed to look and then you have to adjust it. at all stages of production.
So the, the, the calling design a finishing, a finishing product really does a disservice. And then one of the things that this shows is the depth to which people start out designing the look and feel and the data structure and then, and then keep working on it and keep iteratively iteratively coming back to. And you can see that with even things that are very, very. a clean design. There's a, there's a map. It's a wayfinding map, very basic map of Calgary for the Skyway system.
And it's, it's so simple. It's such a simple, clean thing. And you can, you can see someone went in and said, I'm going to make all the curves, this diameter, I'm going to keep the points, this, I'm going to set up the rule set. And they probably adjusted the rule set a little bit, somewhat as they went along. But it's so rule based in its structure.
And that's the design is, is this, this rule based that that's the design that really shows up as opposed to some of the the hand drawn things where every mark, I mean, you look at Anton Thomas's. Map of the world wildlife. He spent two years, full time drawing three years, drawing every single long, the colored pencil, redrawing, erasing, you know, every Mark is this, you know, as part of this immense Mark based design process.
And then you look at Calgary and you think, how long did they actually, it actually probably took a long time to, to, to figure out, I mean, instead of making it a 0. 34 diameter curve, I'm gonna make it a 0. 36 and see how that works and I make it. You make, make the dot instead of, instead of 1. 3 points. How about if we make it 1. 5 points? Well, all those fiddly bits of, of adjusting the rules.
So I think sometimes people think of, people think of, of like the fine arts vision of design that you're, that it's, that it's like Anton Thomas is where every mark. Is part of the design, but in today's algorithmic and software driven world, it's also all the choices of which rule, how rules are going to be fine tuned and how they're going to be adjusted. And that's, that's the whole, there's a big range of of what design means in a process standpoint.
That the thing about that Calgary map that. I often think about is, is, is it's those decisions to simplify and to collect, you know, bring clarity to the map that is, that's the design that helps you communicate really clearly to people that are using it. And it's a very functional map. And I think part of the, part of the essay mentions like.
You know, it needs to be simplified because, you know, the, if you put every little nook and turn in that map, it would make it a lot more complicated and hard to read. So it's, it's it's beautiful and it's simplicity. Kind of building on that idea of rules and simplicity.
I think both of the There's different maps that do this, but especially the North American maps, rivers, maps and again, the snowflake map or snowfall map both do that really well, where it's a very simple idea and there's definitely a very clear set of rules that have been set up. But again, it's, it's just tweaking those rules. So, you know, taking the idea of the subway map and using that. To define and place a selection of rivers.
Or, you know, like you were saying before using this, More current grid hexagon is my brain just broken. Yes. Hexagon a system of that. We've been seeing a lot more in the last five, 10 years. And you know, using snowflakes as opposed to just hexagons to be able to convey that information. So yeah, just using the existing rules, but turning them just a little bit for different ideas is really well represented in, in just these few maps.
Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because using, using kind of. Different rules to apply to different maps, the, there's a couple of maps that really represent sort of older style cartography, but with newer, newer data that, you know, wouldn't have applied a hundred years ago, for example. So there's a, there's a map of Boston sea level rise that is in the style of the old Sanborn fire insurance maps, but it's obviously showing this new climate change sort of themed data.
Yeah. There's a map of the polar melting of the polar ice caps sort of in this older Atlas style, that's really great. So there's these sort of interesting design juxtapositions in several of the maps that I think work really well to sort of make you think about the, the data, you know, in, in new ways. And even some of the hand rendered maps I think most, I don't, I know this for sure, but I think most people who do hand drawn maps will often start.
With GIS data with rectified, you know, geographic, even if it's not, they might start with a base map that was digitally rendered. But these days, almost all the data that you're going to start with has a digital, a digital source that you're working with even as you're, you're rendering it with pencil or pen or, or whatever the, the map of the moon by by Kevin, Kevin Sheehan, it's a, it's a black and white pen and ink. Amazingly.
It's a beautiful, he does just amazingly detailed pen and ink work. He had a map of Paris in the volume six edition, I think, but it's all rendered from modern photography and modern modern imaging, but using older techniques, you know, quill pen and ink sort of, sort of work. You know, one of the things that interests me is, is how. How the technology, the, the, the delivery technology affects, affects design. Ken Fields is a good example.
The, he, the print doesn't show this, but he printed the the map originally it with metallic ink for the, the snowflakes. Which really when you see one of the actual printed maps, it's a really, it, it adds that extra silvery, wintery touch to it, and he's done. So a lot of work. He did a piece that was in the last edition.
Where he took electoral information on a grid for the U S and used Phillips screws to show elevation and to show the net and painted the top with the relative Democrat versus Republican. So he used, I mean, made a funny joke, screwed was the name of the, of the, of the piece. But using the physical object as part of the design and part of the output, how do you, you, how do you. How do you represent things with stuff?
That's one of the things that throughout the history of the Atlas, there have been some really lovely examples. There's a, there's a quilt map in this by Eleanor Lutz, who is a longtime contributor. She's done some really amazing work with planetary maps and solar system maps in the last few years. And this one, she quilted a map of central New York around the area around Central Park. And using, you know, I mean, it's accurate.
Shows the, the, the, the, the the stitch lines show the trails in central park and, you know, the blocks are made from cloth that she acquired from friends and found on the street and whatever that interaction between physical stuff, I make print maps. I make maps for print as a living mostly, but I'm mostly working here on the screen. And so seeing people really work with what it's going to look like when the physical object is delivered.
Whether that's a, a way finding thing in the Calgary skyways, that is, it's going to be backlit this way and it's going to have this ambient light from the, from sunlight that you have to take into account or the physical printing activity is always a real treat in looking at how does it, does that get taken into account? There's also kind of the other end of things where the bowhead hunt.
From Amanda Amon that kind of gets away from the traditional Western perspective of Describing what a map is and you know, just gives a different world view on what place can mean Absolutely. Yeah, there's a couple of really excellent.
There's another excellent example in addition to that map of the the California Bay Area the before you are here map that is similar and it's sort of you know, non traditional, non linearity being more, more conceptual in its geographies, you know, that, that's a fascinating map to, to sort of dive into just like that, the map you just mentioned is.
And, you know, swinging the pendulum on the other direction, there's, you know, the traditional reference maps, like there's a great recreational map of Pennsylvania. There's you know, a beautiful, Map of the United States by Dave Imus that just is so dense in its details and labeling and, and just really well executed reference map.
So, The, the Alice is a really great way to sort of represent all these different styles and ideas of what design is and, you know, what it can show and what it can, what it can do. I think as we, as we're kind of heading towards the end of the conversation I wanted to hit on the, the Ford that Nat wrote.
Can you talk a little bit about your perspective as you were writing that, as you were saying in it, you, you hadn't actually seen what the final maps were going to be when you wrote it, but already knew. After six volumes, you know, kind of the direction it was heading. Well, one of the things that's interested me as an editor is the extent to which the Atlas of Design shows what everyone thinks of as the cream. The judges say, well, what's the best map? What's the coolest map?
And I mean, every day I make maps that are never going to make it into the Atlas, you know. at maps for books, maps for local maps, whatever. And those are designed too. And I hope they're designed well for the purposes to which they're, they're intended. Map design isn't just about showing off and being a, you know, kind of a prima donna on stage with the bus stop with a spotlight. Although those maps are cool.
I mean, I, I love looking at, at those, I think it was as like a candy store that the, the, these books are just like, you open it up and there's another chocolate. It's so delicious to look at. So that, that was a lot of what I was thinking about, is thinking about how, yeah, this is the best of cartography, but that isn't all that cartography is. Cartography is also just a big working tradition.
You know, you, you think about how, you know, certain, you know, someone wins the Nobel Prize for Literature or the Pulitzer Prize, and then there's thousands and thousands and thousands of, millions of bits of writing. That are essential to keeping our civilization running and those are really important too. And the, the, the, what this represents, what the Atlas represents is just like the shiny surface, the shiny bits on the surface of this really huge and rich tradition.
As is how I think of it as a graphic tradition that we're, we're all looking at each other's maps. Not just these, but we're, you know, you pick a map up off the shelf and say, I could have done well, actually, that was really well done that that was really well done, but I could have done that. I would have done that differently.
And that's a lot of what the design process, not just map by map, but as an ongoing process is for me is, is, is looking at other maps and and figuring out how to do my maps better in large part by looking at other people's work. So that's, that's in a nutshell what it's about. It's about mapping as a, as a tradition and looking at it in that, in that viewpoint of not just how can I make my work in my little cell better, but being part of this big community.
And I should say that that's actually one of the things that I love about NACIS as an organization is that it really focuses on community and it focuses on we bring in a lot of students and grad students, a lot of first timers come for the first time to NACIS.
It's, and yeah, NACIS is nicest is one of our, one of our mottos, and that we're very much about listening to each other and sharing with each other and being, being part of a community where than just, you know, checking off the box of, I gave a paper at a conference for your, for your resume, being together as a group. And I think this, the Atlas is a reflection of that, of it being a community of cartographers.
One, one nice thing I want to add on to that is, you know, and most NACIS members are from the United States and Canada. And one nice thing about the Atlas project, it's sort of progressively expanded its reach more globally. I mean, this year's Atlas has rep, representative maps from, you know, dozens of different countries and regions around the world. So. So it's been really great to sort of expand that that view of design to a more worldwide level with this project.
And even within I mean the globally, but also you know, the under the broad umbrella of diversity equity, DEI stuff, which has been a focus of NACIS and institutional work over the last few years, the, the two examples we gave of indigenously framed maps, there's been this huge. Growth.
And it's still very much ongoing of I mean, 10 years ago, people were looking at indigenous mapping in in the U S historically in the Pacific and in Australia in particular, and sort of saying, well, that's, that's a really different way of thinking about it. And what we're seeing now is people taking that difference. Okay. How can we make it into a thing that other people will look at and understand and see? And it's, it's really exciting to see that.
Transition from just sort of an exotic, it had an exotic approach, I think, from for a lot of Western cartographers and now we're starting to see it not just being exotic, but being interesting and integral. And how can we understand? How can we not just see our work as the only way to show space and have that actively be part of community work? So, Go team seven's about to come out. What are your thoughts on the next two years?
As you begin to look towards eight, what does that look like in terms of your timeline and all those things? When can people begin to submit their maps for interest? So the timeline right now, I should say that if you, so the Atlas seven volume seven is in pre order. You can pre order it now. The actual books will be out beginning of October and you can be, you could pick it up at the NACIS conference. If you're coming to the NACIS conference, you can have it mailed to you. Atlas of design.
org is where you should go to both to find more about the Atlas and also to there's an order page that links you to, we, we sell through Amazon, through the website and through East view, which sells to libraries, institutions. So that our focus is on. promoting the book and talking about it, including things like podcasts, for example. So thank you for having us on here to let us spread the word.
The new team of edit, the new team of editors will come on early next year, figure out who's, who's, who's next. Usually the the call for entries is at the NACIS conference in October of 2025. It'll be this year. The the deadline is usually January of 2020. It'll be during your 20 to 26 and then judging and processing and all that stuff happens for several months. Dan can testify to just how much work it is. It's, it's, it's, that's, that's a, I'm, I'm surprised I was, that's a tight timeline.
It's it, we, we got it down. I'm not sure we got it out of science, but we got it down to something and. And then it goes to print in went to print in right around August 20th. And then we have printed books in October. So that's, that's our, that's our current cycle. Well, you jumped ahead and answered my, my, my last question about the actual volume seven. So, but. Like you said, it's atlasofdesign. org.
If you go to slash seven, that also gives you a direct link to some examples of what's going on in the book as well. Is there anything else you want to mention about volume seven? Yeah, I just like to thank the other editors, you know, we're, we're just two of a large group of people that have worked on this project. So Aileen Clark, Aaron Greb. And Aaron Kolker are the other three editors on this project, and they've all put in a ton of time and effort to this project. So thank you to them.
And then we also have 12 volunteer judges that you know, take those several hundred entries and, and basically rank them. And that sort of informs our decision as to how to do this. How we choose what goes into the Atlas. So I'm not going to mention everybody, but there's a lot of people that have been involved in this project over the course of these two years. And, and as has been true, the last couple of editions, the, you could have made two atlases.
We could have made two atlases out of, out of you know, there, there was another 33 that we said, ah, boy, if only we had a bigger book. So if you look at the list of honorable mentions in the in the Atlas, you get to see even more of a range of really cool people doing really cool work. Out there. Yeah. And there's been a couple of blog posts in the past week or so about those entries that we, we wrote a little bit about. So if you want to read about that again, atlasofdesign.
org is the place to find all of that. And then a little bit of a plug for a NACIS 2024 October 16th through the 19th in Tacoma, Washington, probably a little bit late for folks to make a, a plan to get there now, but if you're in the area, jump in the car and drive over. And NACIS and NACIS members get a 25 percent discount on the Atlas one of the benefits of membership. So if you're thinking about it, join in, we'd love to have you.
And it's a great organization not just for the Atlas and for the conference, but the journal. And, and like you said, just the community itself. Thank you for joining us today. Is there anything personally outside of the Atlas of Design that you kind of want to highlight or just focus on the Atlas today? Focus on the Atlas. And thank you so much for taking the time. And. Letting us rattle on about it because we don't know we love it We love it and we want to spread the spread the spread the joy.
So yeah, thank you for having us Yeah, it's a great project and we look forward to well, okay, I don't look forward to it because I actually got a Sneak peek copy, but everybody else is looking forward to volume 7. So thanks a lot. Great. Thanks. Nice On the events corner, as Sue said, we want you to go to events. If you can, there are still virtual events as well out there. I know that coming up with due dates the AAG has already passed.
I think it's early, early bird registration, but abstracts are still being accepted. The Ezra user conference should be accepting abstracts pretty soon. I don't know who else. These are the big ones, you know, but there are also lots of other you the GSP pro, GSP pro, what is the Eurysis GIS pro conference just took place a couple of weeks ago. And so, you know, keep it on your radar. It's 1 that people miss a lot or it's coming up in October. I think it was in September. Wasn't it earlier?
Yeah. Applied geography is usually in October. Apply Geography the Remote Sensing Conference, which I'm not sure if it's still called ASPRS or, actually no, ASPRS is part of GeoWeek now, so there's something still in the fall. That's there. NACIS, of course, of course, we were just talking to the, the guys about. The nais conference is coming up in October where you can of course pick up the seventh edition if you do buy it. Sorry. Pick up a copy. Yeah, pick it up.
Instead of having it shipped to you let's see. It's going to be, or was October 7th through 10th. So coming up. Yep. So just around the corner. So Portland Maine. That's kind of cool. So there you go. If you wanna do full foliage and talk GIS there could not be a better setting that Portland Maine. Might, might. That might past peak though. Might Yeah, a little bit. They're, they're up there. Yeah. So lots of conferences every year in October.
And again, regional conferences, a lot of them East Lakes, West Lakes, Sea Dive, of course, always the week of Thanksgiving. Most of the others I think are October or very early November. So check those out. Of course, if you want us to add your event to the podcast, send us an email to podcast at veryspatial. com. If you'd like to reach us individually, I can be reached at Sue at veryspatial. com. You can reach me at Barb at VerySpatial. com. You can reach me at Frank at VerySpatial.
com. And I'm available at Jesse at VerySpatial. com. Of course, if you want to find any of our contact information, you can go over to VerySpatial. com slash contacts and do that. As always, we're the folks in Very Spatial. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you in a couple weeks.