Searching for Famous Outdoor Globes and Maps

We are on a search for pictures of famous outdoor globes and maps like this one of the Unisphere. The Unisphere is a 12 story, spherical stainless steel representation of the globe. It was constructed to celebrate the beginning of the space age at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. It is located in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York City. It is the world's largest global structure weighing in at 700,000 pounds and is 140 feet tall. The diameter is 120 feet.

It was designed by landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke and donated by US Steel. The Unisphere has been featured in film and TV shows of all kinds, including Earth 2100, Law and Order, The King of Queens and of course  the 1997 movie, Men in Black
To learn more about this check out the wikipedia page on it.

We need your help
We are trying to located and post all kinds of global map structures like this, not just globes but also regular indoor and outdoor maps that live in the environment, on walls, buildings, parks, anywhere, flat or dimensional. If you know of any we would love for you to take a picture and email them to us and we will put them up on the blog. We are interested in any kinds, from anywhere in the world. Please email to bruce@bjdesign.com

Mapparium at the Christian Science Plaza

One of the world's coolest maps is the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library at the Christian Science Plaza in Boston, MA. The mapparium, designed by Chester Lindsay Churchill, is a three story tall glass globe made up of stained glass. When you visit the globe you tour it by walking through its center. This map was built in 1935 in the Library and reflects the world as it was at that time. The library is a  public museum and library at the church and features many exhibits. The globe now features a computer-controlled light show highlighting regions and is designed to be viewed from the inside. Because of its hard glass surface it forms a whispering gallery that lets one hear someone from the far side.  Since 1935 more than 10 million people have visited this amazing structure.

The mapparium can be viewed everyday but Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. To learn more visit the Mary Baker Eddy Library website.

Babson College World Globe

Calling all maps, Calling all maps. We are looking for cool outdoor and public maps from anywhere in the world. Let start off with one in our own backyard. This is the World Globe at Babson College in Babson Park, 231 Forest Street, Wellesley, MA . It was dedicated in 1955 and then refurbished in 1993. It is one of the largest free standing globes in the world, 28 feet in diameter and coming in at 25 tons. And it can spin on its base and axis. A buddy of mine who was a student at Babson used to turn it on and get it spinning. You can see more about it on the museum archives page on the Babson.edu site.

We would love to see what you find, so locate a public map, can be in a park, on a wall, on a floor, anywhere, take a picture and send it to me and I will put it up on the blog. Send to bruce(at)bjdesign(dot)com

Using World of Maps in an Upcoming Book

Customer Question: I am interested in using your maps in a book that I will be publishing, are there royalty fees to pay? do I need to indicate source of the maps on each page or at the end of the book?


Answer:  Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. You are free to use the maps in your book, there are no additional royalties that you have to pay and you do not have to mention the source. If you want to somewhere that is cool but we don't require it at all.

The only restriction we have is if you are making a map clipart book, for that we have a license but other than that no problem at all. Would love to know the subject matter and when you get it done let me know and I will put a link to it on our blog if you want.

very cool, thank you for asking, please let me know if you have questions. Check out all our maps at www.mapsfordesign.com

Pacific Rim Map from the US to Japan and Korea

Customer Questions: I am looking for a EPS format map showing the entire Pacific Rim, needs to include west coast of U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Far East, Japan, Korea, China, and also the South Pacific.  Do you have such a map?  If so whats the cost and can I see it?

Answer: We don't have an actual Pacific Rim map but we do have a number of world projection maps in Adobe Illustrator that could be easily edited. I have attached a jpg picture of one, Because you are working in Illustrator (eps) you could easily move the pieces around, and cut off the parts of the map you don't need.  We also have a world projection map with Australia in the center and it is basically a Pacific Rim map.

You can check out all of our maps at www.bjdesign.com, the cost is $149.95 for unlimited download of everything.

Please see attached and let me know if you have any questions on what we offer.

Here is the actual page  for our World Projection maps on our site for you to review, just scroll down to see all of the maps.

Using World of Maps for Slide Presentations

Customer Question: I am interested in the World of Maps for slide presentations on travels. Have a iMac. Will it work. I am look specificially for INDIA, NEPAL, BHUTAN, TIBET?

Answer: Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. Yes you will be able to use our maps with your iMac. We have three formats. So if you have PowerPoint or Keynote then you can use the PowerPoint ones and edit and customize all you want.

If you have Adobe Illustrator then the eps maps would work and you can custom the maps

And if you have neither of these you can use the jpg versions of the maps. The jpgs will go into iPhoto or any photo editing program you might have such as Adobe Photoshop. And if you don't have a photo editing program other than iPhoto then you could use an online one like Picnik to edit and customize http://www.picnik.com/

All of these formats come included for the one price on or subscription site www.bjdesign.com or if you just need a single map then check out www.mapsfordesign.com, or individual site.

5 More How to Instruction Videos for Customizing PPT Maps

In our previous instructional video list we highlighted some of our popular videos. This post continues with some more videos on customizing our editable World of Maps PowerPoint maps. These videos can be watch at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

6. Setting Up a Country Sales and Marketing Territory. Our editable PowerPoint county maps are very popular for highlighting a sales territory for people. We sell our maps to many sales and marketing managers and this is a very common request. Can I set up a simple territory map for my sales people. Our maps work great for this and this video walks you through the sets. View this video.

7. How to Divide a PowerPoint Clip Art Map In-half. This video covers one of our most asked questions. How to divide a state or county in half. Very ofter a state is covered by more than one sales rep and the manager needs to show this. PowerPoint isn't really a graphic program but we have come up with a number of techniques to do this.

8. How to Enlarge or Reduce an Object in PowerPoint. A common problem is that you have highlighted several states or counties for a presentation but they aren't big enough in the slide. This video shows you how to do this, bigger or smaller.

9. Printable, Blank, Outline USA and World Maps. We sell mostly PowerPoint and Illustrator maps with colors in them ready to go. But alot of people use blank maps that they can mark up and draw on. Our maps are great for doing this if you just remove the color. Plus most blank printable maps you find on the web can't be customized for your project. Ours, using PowerPoint which almost everyone has, can easily be. Remove the color and print it out. This video walks you through the steps, view it on YouTube.

10. This is a two part video, Favorite PowerPoint Customizing Tips, Parts 1 and 2. We have learned a lot over the years using our maps. In these two videos we release this info. We talk about Grouping and Ungrouping, using the Shift Key, and in Part 2 Enlarging and Reducing and the Snap to Grid feature.

Hope you enjoy them and find them useful. Let us know of any questions you have, maybe we will make it into a video.

Blank Printable Canada Outline Map, no Text

Same as the map below but just without the text names. This blank, printable Canada map can be used for your personal, corporate or educational project. It is royalty free, it can't be resold or freely distributed but you can edit or copy it without any issues. This map prints out to 8.5 x 11. We have a full range of completely editable maps on our download clip art maps sites that you can check out if you need one that you can change however you need. www.bjdesign.com

We have also pull together a simple video on how to make up a blank map from one of our editable Powerpoint Maps, please see below

Canada Printable Blank Map with Text Name

Blank, Printable map of Canada with text names and province borders. This jpg Canada map is royalty free and can be used for personal, corporate or educational projects. You can download it off this blog and edit and use it for your own projects. This map is part of our large collection of Free, Royalty Free US, World, States, Countries and Globes maps.

Top How to Videos for Customizing PowerPoint Maps

Over the last couple of years we have produced quite a few instructional or "How To Videos" on customizing our editable PowerPoint Map. These have been very popular and helpful to our customers. Below is a list of some of our most popular. All of these can be seen on either of our World of Maps web sites. www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

1. Editable USA and Canada PowerPoint and Illustrator Royalty Free Clip Art Maps. Gives a good overview of our editable maps and how they work. This video can be viewed on YouTube

2. How Do I Color an Object in a PowerPoint Slide. Goes all how to easily select a state or country and color it to highlight a territory or location.

3. How to Add Text to a PowerPoint Slide. After adding color and setting up your territory, adding some text labels or sales peoples names is next. This video covers how to add text to the PowerPoint slide.

4. How Do I Set Up Hyperlinks on a PowerPoint Map? Setting up hyperlinks isn't something you do every day but is a real nice feature to have in your bag of trick to dress up a presentation. This video walks you through the steps.

5. How to Convert a PowerPoint Slide to a JPG File for a Website. PowerPoint has a lot of great features and one of them is to act like a temporary desktop publishing or photo program. Because our maps are so editable you can quickly set up a custom map graphic. I often end up recommending using PowerPoint as a quick work around to produce a graphic for some other purpose other than a presentation. Making a web graphic is one of those things. This video walks you through the very simple technique to turn a PowerPoint slide into a JPG file that can be used for a web graphic

How to Color a US State or Country Map in a PowerPoint Slide

We have had great responses to our How to Videos that we post on bjdesign.com and mapsfordesign.com walking customers through the basic steps of customizing our USA, Canada or World Editable PowerPoint Maps. In this series of posts we are going to break down the Coloring a US State or Country PowerPoint Map video and show you the steps screen by screen. Remember our editable PowerPoint maps also work with Apple Keynote presentation software

You can also view this and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com


Click to Read Part 1

Part 1. How to Color a US State PowerPoint Map to Set up a Sales Territory

Starting with anyone of our basic editable PowerPoint Maps, US, World, State County, Country, or World Regions, they all work the same.

Click or Select the state or country that you want to color by clicking on it with the mouse pointer. On the PC use the right button of the mouse, on the Mac just click with the mouse.

You can tell something is selected because you will see 8 little boxes or handles appear around the edges, this tells you the object has been selected and you can now do something to it. Make sure you have the Format Pallette or the Drawing Tools Window open.

You can view this video and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com


Click to Read Part 2

Part 2. How to Color a US State PowerPoint Map to Set up a Sales or Marketing Map

Once you have a state or country selected, (remember you do this by clicking on the state with the mouse pointer) choose a color from the Fill Bucket in the Drawing Tool Bar usually located along the bottom of the PowerPoint slide or on one side.

Or choose a color from the Colors, Weights and Fills option in the Format Palette. If you don’t see it, this Palette it is located in the VIEW pull down menu.

On the new PowerPoint 2007 the fill options are located up at the top in the ribbon, Click on the Colors Button in the Design Tab in the Themes group. The Design Tab appears when an object is selected. Select your color

You can view this video and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

Click to read Part 3

Part 3. How to Color a US State PowerPoint Map to Set up a Sales Territory

You have now selected one state or country and filled it with a color. (remember you do this by clicking on the state with the mouse pointer and choosing a color from the Fill Bucket in the Drawing Tool Bar usually located along the bottom of the PowerPoint slide or on one side.

When done deselect by clicking off the image and start on your next state or country.

A couple of tips to help you manage your project:

1. Holding down the Shift Key on your keyboard allows you to select and change several objects at the same time to make the project go faster.

2. Every object in PowerPoint is made up of a fill color and an outline or stroke color, both can be changed independently of each other.

3. When you are done with a section you might Group it together to help you manage your project.

You can view this video and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

http://mapsfordesign.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-color-us-state-or-country-map-in.html

Blank Printable USA 2 Letter State Map

Blank Printable Outline Map of the US with 2 letter state names. Perfect for quickly sketching out some marketing data or a class assignment. This royalty free jpg map is located on our new www.freeusandworldmaps.com site. The home for all kinds of royalty free jpg maps. Including printable blank maps as well as all kind of colored US, World, States, Countries, and World Regions and Globes.

To learn more click here for www.freeUSandWorldMaps.com

Maps for Design.com Editable PowerPoint Maps

After a brief break we have relaunched our single downloadable editable Powerpoint clip art map site, MapsforDesign.com. The site carries a full line of editable PowerPoint maps for sales and marketing presentations, illustrations, web sites and classroom projects. Containing PPT maps of the World, US, States, Counties, World Regions, Countries and Globes. The site has a new look, is more efficient and will have an expanded collection of maps. Along with all the new features we have added the full line of our "How To Customize" videos to the site. Maps can be purchases individually for your projects. You can also purchase a CD if you wanted the entire collection.

If you need more than three PowerPoint maps we recommend you use our subscription site www.bjdesign.com where you can download as many maps as you want for one fixed price. Either way we have got you covered. BJDesign also carries the full line of Adobe Illustrator and jpg maps.

For an individual map, http://www.mapsfordesign.com
If you need lots of maps, http://www.bjdesign.com

Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities

Well now here is a interesting new book coming out later this month. Sounds like it might be a lot of fun, the book is based off of the Strange Maps blog by Frank Jacobs

Spanning many centuries, all continents, and the realms of outer space and the imagination, a collection of 138 unique graphics combining beautiful full-color illustrations with quirky statistics and smart social commentary. The result is a distinctive illustrated guide to the world. Categories of cartographic curiosities include: • Literary Creations, featuring a map of Thomas More's Utopia and the world of George Orwell's 1984

• Misconceptions, such as a lavish seventeenth century map depicting California as an island
• Political Parody, containing the "Jesusland map" and other humorous takes on voter profiles
• Whatchamacallit, including a map of the area codes for regions where the rapper Ludacris sings about having "hoes"
• Obscure Proposals, capturing Thomas Jefferson's vision for dividing the Northwest Territory into ten states with names such as Polypotamia and Assenisipia
• Fantastic Maps, with a depiction of what the globe might look like if the sea and land were inverted

Strange Maps is a fascinating tour of all things weird and wonderful in the world of cartography.

Check it out at Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities

Also check out the Strange Maps blog

Focus on Europe Day, Scandinavia

Well it is starting to get cold and fall is fast approaching, leaves will be turning soon. We were thinking of Europe and our attention drifted up to the Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden Finland and Denmark. We had produced this editable PowerPoint and illustrator maps a while back and thought it was time to bring it back out again.

Keep your attention to the blog, our MapsforDesign.com site is about to be relaunched, new shopping cart, easier to navigate, and a tighter focus on PowerPoint map for presentations. We have been working away on it for the past several months. In the mean time all of our maps are available at our subscription site, www.bjdesign.com for any of your projects. Remember we love questions so ask away.

Blank Printable World Mercator Map

We have been working away on the new free map site, putting up all kinds of royalty free jpg maps, World, USA, States, Countries, Regions, Globes, and Antique Maps. One of the sections that we have is for free blank, printable world and also USA maps. Above is a free example of a World Mercator map. This can be download and used for your map projects. As always we have all our original editable PowerPoint and Illustrator maps over on www.bjdesign.com. To see the new jpg free maps click this link: www.freeusandworldmaps.com

New Free JPG Map Website

We are please to announce the launch of a new website offering royalty free jpg maps for design, illustration, websites, and education. All of the maps are free to download and use for projects. The maps are perfect for printing or using in your projects. All maps are in jpg format and can easily be customized in any photo editing program.

The site includes World projections, US maps, US state and county maps, World regions, Globes, Countries. Plus soon to come will be Antique/Historical maps CD Roms and lots of resources.

To learn more click on over to www.freeusandworldmaps.com