Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Maps for Design Product Review


Hi all, we have received a very nice review from Beyondbulletspoints.com on our Editable PowerPoint Maps, thank you Meryl Evans and Beyond Bullet Points.

August 11, 2008
Product Review: Editable Maps for PowerPoint
by Meryl Evans

Maps make great visual aids in a presentation. You might want to use maps in your presentation to show the locations of your offices, where your customers are, or doing an Al Gore and showing the effects of the environment in different cities, states, countries, continents. You could also use maps to make up your own world to use it as a theme in your BBP presentation.
This doesn’t mean starting from scratch or using clip art where you bend over backwards trying to add or delete text because it has no editable regions. Bruce Jones Design offers World of Maps, which are ready to use, easy to edit and customize, and a royalty-free collection of over 1200 clip-art maps for presentations, illustrations, and web sites.

The collection includes World, Regional, Countries, USA and Canada, USA States, Counties and Globe maps in multiple formats, including PowerPoint, EPS, JPG, GIF, and BMP. Most maps are provided in both color and black & white.

Here’s what you can do with these maps:
• Customize the color.
• Add or delete text.
• Pull out states or countries to highlight.
• Show territories, markets, offices by breaking out counties, states or countries and coloring them differently or using a color code.
As shown in the example here, instructions accompany every map when you open the .PPT maps in PowerPoint. You can also check out the videos at the company’s blog that shows how to do different things with maps at World of Maps — How to Videos.

The site’s frequently asked questions explains how to highlight, edit, divide, and enlarge areas. The maps in .ppt format let you have a lot of control. The company also provides maps in GIF, JPG, and EPS (Edit EPS maps in Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Macromedia Freehand). formats for those who like to do serious graphical work and have the right format for their needs.

The entire collection of over 1200 maps sells for $149.95. If you want it all on a CD-ROM, it’s $199.95. Within the year of purchasing the collection, you may come back as often as you’d like and download any or all of Bruce Jones Design’s maps in any four file formats. The access subscription lasts one year, but the maps are yours to keep.

And the company has graciously made a special offer available for BBP readers. The discount code is good through the end of 2008 for 20% off any purchase and for up to 10 purchases per customer. No one ever does that many purchases but people can come back whenever they want.

The code is: mapsbbp20

The coupon is case sensitive and you enter it on the order form at http://www.mapsfordesign.com.

click to read more.