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>> The Good Design Grand Award, arguably Japan’s most prestigious award for design, went out to architect Hajime Narukawa’s completely groundbreaking design for

>> The Good Design Grand Award, arguably Japan’s most prestigious award for design, went out to architect Hajime Narukawa’s completely groundbreaking design for a map of the world. His map, the AuthaGraph World Map, isn’t your average map of the globe: It’s a near-perfect representation of the continents and oceans as they exist on our spherical planet, all laid out on a two-dimensional surface. https://totravelistolive.co/authagraph-world-map/ https://totravelistolive.co/authagraph-world-map/

alanbernstein 5y ago
I prefer the (related) Dymaxion approach myself, but I'll admit it's not quite as accessible.
- birktj 5y ago
  I really like the Dymaxion projection as well, especially the fact that one can easily see that all major land masses are separated by only small distances of water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map
  - zokier 5y ago
    Dymaxion map is neat, but I don't think human brains are very good at handling interrupted maps and Dymaxion is particularly challenging. It is just pretty difficult to mentally intuit how the edges connect, and especially judge distances that cross the edges. Trying to eyeball something like Sydney-Lima great circle path on Dymaxion is unintuitive. Of similar interrupted style, I think butterfly projections are even better. They might distort land masses slightly more, but are immensely more readable. And they have very pretty symmetric outline.
- afterburner 5y ago
  Even better, a close relative of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projectio...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
Really cool. The shapes of the contents and countries seem like what I am used to. Except for Brazil. Brazil really looks like it bulges out from South America compared to what I have seen on globes and other projections. Does anyone know why that happens?
- wtallis 5y ago
  Any comparison of map projections should include Tissot's indicatrix [0] as a visualization of how distortion varies across the map. I find that it's easier to understand than looking at stretched and bent lines of latitude and longitude. For AuthaGraph: https://kunimune.home.blog/2017/11/23/the-secrets-of-the-authagraph-revealed/ https://kunimune.home.blog/2017/11/23/the-secrets-of-the-aut... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissot%27s_indicatrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissot%27s_indicatrix
josephcsible 5y ago
This projection seems to really skew shapes. For example, Alaska looks skewed diagonally, Brazil looks really stretched east-to-west, and the west half of Australia looks too big compared to the east half.
- eru 5y ago
  Mercator is what you get when you preserve local angles (ie shapes). So it's only natural that moving away from Mercator would distort shapes. I guess you could try to concentrate your angle distortion into the ocean away from the land masses that people care about?
logbiscuitswave 5y ago
That’s a fascinatingly done projection. It really demonstrates how it’s possible for Maine to be the closest US state to Africa.
owenversteeg 5y ago
I’m not a fan of AuthaGraph at all. It has horrible distortion look at Brazil or Alaska - and it’s proprietary (creator never released the actual map details, so you can’t make your own...) The worst thing, in my eyes, is that the distortion is unpredictable. Looking at a map where Canada is too big, you can mentally imagine Canada as smaller. But you can’t mentally undo the multi-direction transformation of Alaska into not-Alaska. The distortion is so bad that real world things like a road trip through South America would end up looking completely different from this map to another. You better hope you never get on a boat or a plane using this map - try tracing a straight line if you want a laugh. (The unfortunate distortion-hacking done by its creator effectively dumped the distortion in the oceans, so good luck if you ever go there.) Design features like “you can do nifty origami with it” shouldn’t factor into if a map is used or not. In my opinion, if you want something modern and cool, and you really care about pure accuracy, go with Waterman Butterfly. If you want something four sided and traditional, and relative sizes are slightly less important (but still important), go with Peirce Quincuncial - which, I might add, has far better looking Tissot’s indicatrices.
- andi999 5y ago
  If one really cares about accuracy, why not getting a globe.
  - thewakalix 5y ago
    Yes, you're very clever.
  - sheepdestroyer 5y ago
    We all do : Google Earth. Is there still a point to 2D maps?
    - KineticLensman 5y ago
      > Is there still a point to 2D maps? Hiking away from cell towers and wifi Historical maps Maps that aren't owned by Google
Causality1 5y ago
It’s a near-perfect representation of the continents and oceans as they exist on our spherical planet, all laid out on a two-dimensional surface. This is a bullshit statement. You cannot project the surface of the earth onto a flat plane without distortion. AuthaGraph favors the preservation of size at the cost of extreme distortion of shape.
afterburner 5y ago
I far prefer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projectio... Minimal distortion, preserves east west alignment as much as possible.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Here is an interactive tool, that lets you center other projections on different countries, to see the effect of the distortions move about: https://engaging-data.com/country-centered-map-projections/ https://engaging-data.com/country-centered-map-projections/ From playing around with that, it would seem the design process for the map was to "center" japan, then fiddle around with the polar regions to make them more recognisable.
macspoofing 5y ago
Very neat. And he didn't forget New Zealand[1] =) I wonder how much the Mercator projection influenced the recent flat earth movement, specifically the Antarctic ice wall. [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/
slim 5y ago
The map also follows the tradition of putting one's own country at the center

alanbernstein 5y ago

I prefer the (related) Dymaxion approach myself, but I'll admit it's not quite as accessible.

birktj 5y ago
I really like the Dymaxion projection as well, especially the fact that one can easily see that all major land masses are separated by only small distances of water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map
- zokier 5y ago
  Dymaxion map is neat, but I don't think human brains are very good at handling interrupted maps and Dymaxion is particularly challenging. It is just pretty difficult to mentally intuit how the edges connect, and especially judge distances that cross the edges. Trying to eyeball something like Sydney-Lima great circle path on Dymaxion is unintuitive. Of similar interrupted style, I think butterfly projections are even better. They might distort land masses slightly more, but are immensely more readable. And they have very pretty symmetric outline.
afterburner 5y ago
Even better, a close relative of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projectio...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

Really cool. The shapes of the contents and countries seem like what I am used to. Except for Brazil. Brazil really looks like it bulges out from South America compared to what I have seen on globes and other projections. Does anyone know why that happens?

wtallis 5y ago
Any comparison of map projections should include Tissot's indicatrix [0] as a visualization of how distortion varies across the map. I find that it's easier to understand than looking at stretched and bent lines of latitude and longitude. For AuthaGraph: https://kunimune.home.blog/2017/11/23/the-secrets-of-the-authagraph-revealed/ https://kunimune.home.blog/2017/11/23/the-secrets-of-the-aut... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissot%27s_indicatrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissot%27s_indicatrix

josephcsible 5y ago

This projection seems to really skew shapes. For example, Alaska looks skewed diagonally, Brazil looks really stretched east-to-west, and the west half of Australia looks too big compared to the east half.

eru 5y ago
Mercator is what you get when you preserve local angles (ie shapes). So it's only natural that moving away from Mercator would distort shapes. I guess you could try to concentrate your angle distortion into the ocean away from the land masses that people care about?

logbiscuitswave 5y ago

That’s a fascinatingly done projection. It really demonstrates how it’s possible for Maine to be the closest US state to Africa.

owenversteeg 5y ago

I’m not a fan of AuthaGraph at all. It has horrible distortion look at Brazil or Alaska - and it’s proprietary (creator never released the actual map details, so you can’t make your own...) The worst thing, in my eyes, is that the distortion is unpredictable. Looking at a map where Canada is too big, you can mentally imagine Canada as smaller. But you can’t mentally undo the multi-direction transformation of Alaska into not-Alaska. The distortion is so bad that real world things like a road trip through South America would end up looking completely different from this map to another. You better hope you never get on a boat or a plane using this map - try tracing a straight line if you want a laugh. (The unfortunate distortion-hacking done by its creator effectively dumped the distortion in the oceans, so good luck if you ever go there.) Design features like “you can do nifty origami with it” shouldn’t factor into if a map is used or not. In my opinion, if you want something modern and cool, and you really care about pure accuracy, go with Waterman Butterfly. If you want something four sided and traditional, and relative sizes are slightly less important (but still important), go with Peirce Quincuncial - which, I might add, has far better looking Tissot’s indicatrices.

andi999 5y ago
If one really cares about accuracy, why not getting a globe.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  Yes, you're very clever.
- sheepdestroyer 5y ago
  We all do : Google Earth. Is there still a point to 2D maps?
  - KineticLensman 5y ago
    > Is there still a point to 2D maps? Hiking away from cell towers and wifi Historical maps Maps that aren't owned by Google

Causality1 5y ago

It’s a near-perfect representation of the continents and oceans as they exist on our spherical planet, all laid out on a two-dimensional surface. This is a bullshit statement. You cannot project the surface of the earth onto a flat plane without distortion. AuthaGraph favors the preservation of size at the cost of extreme distortion of shape.

afterburner 5y ago

I far prefer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projectio... Minimal distortion, preserves east west alignment as much as possible.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Here is an interactive tool, that lets you center other projections on different countries, to see the effect of the distortions move about: https://engaging-data.com/country-centered-map-projections/ https://engaging-data.com/country-centered-map-projections/ From playing around with that, it would seem the design process for the map was to "center" japan, then fiddle around with the polar regions to make them more recognisable.

macspoofing 5y ago

Very neat. And he didn't forget New Zealand[1] =) I wonder how much the Mercator projection influenced the recent flat earth movement, specifically the Antarctic ice wall. [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/

slim 5y ago

The map also follows the tradition of putting one's own country at the center