Paula Scher is an american graphic designer, artist and educator that is at the top of the game in the industry. I came across her work on typographic maps and it's definitely impressive. The maps are complicated pieces of work, the paintings are saturated with information that are connected to create the cartography. The illusion of completeness is made out of the typographic work. The words used don't necessarily refer to a cartographic reference, but they appeal to other aspects that Scher wants to translate into a map. In her own words:
I began painting maps to invent my own complicated narrative about the way I see and feel about the world. I wanted to list what I know about the world from memory, from impressions, from media, and from general information overload. These are paintings of distortions.
So this way of distorting maps end up subtracting the cartographic content of the maps and translating it into an artistic platform. The information mapped becomes the artist's impression and a glimpse into her appreciation of the world. Her work is being published in the book Paula Scher: MAPS, which is going to feature her pieces in large format. Definitely worth a read!
