Illustrated Vector Map

Introduction

What is special about it? what is its "vibe"? what is your personal association with the place.

I have chosen this particular area to make a map of. I have a lot of fond memories with this society called Legend. I used to live there earlier, but had shifted outside of the society long ago. I go everyday to meet up with the best of my friends. We all hang out either in the square, or go for a walk around the society. I know each and every nook and cranny of this place. The only thing I don't know till date is which building or villa has what name.

It was a lot of fun to walk around with the same group of friends who I have been friends with for almost half my lifetime, which is 9 years approximately. We all walked together and reminded each other of certain events that took place at certain spots. As we walked past these locations we could literally see it happening, for example where one of my friends was riding the cycle so fast that he felling over his cycle whilst he was trying to impress someone. We also got reminded of where we all used to play badminton when it used to be so windy. I got reminded of the roof where we all sat and enjoyed the golden hour together.

At certain areas of the society is where it is always very windy because of the way the flats have been built. There is a club where we all used to meet up but now it just seems to be like this dingy place where one goes to drink water, work out, or play pool.

Doing this first part of the activity brought back so many fond memories, thinking about all those memories gave me rush of varying emotions.

While making the hand drawn map I struggled a bit with the proportions of the buildings, width of the road/path. To overcome this I walked around those tough spots as though I was an inspector who is trying to find faults in the infrastructure of the high rise buildings. I worked on measuring what the length of my stride is and took that as a scale and counted the steps I am taking in order to be able to make an estimate. By no means are these accurate but I was taken a back by how close it looked to bird eye view of google maps that I took to compare my hand drawn map with.

Stages...

Week-1: The "H" stands for my house, where I currently live. "H2" and "H3" both stand for the houses of two of my best friends. The "S" stands for the place called square, that's where we all meet and sit and chit chat and spend time.

The vibe or type of look I want to give to this map is of a treasure hunt. It will be nostalgic, mysterious, and ancient (hand drawn) but at the same time it will have a modern touch. The way I am going to achieve this look is by referring to old maps that my Nana gave to my Mom.

Week-2: Just started making roads, made all the simple roads and got the foundation of the roads.

Week-3: Finished roads and outlines of the flats.

LJL: Illustrated Vector Map Link