Long Beach Calling

One of my favorite maps of last year was Peak Map, a fantastic interactive map which can create a joy-plot map for any location on Earth. Joy-plots (or ridgeline plots as they are sometimes called) are inspired by Joy Division's famous album cover for their Unknown Pleasures record. Enter your location into Peak Map and you can create your very own map based on the Unknown Pleasures album cover.

But why restrict yourself to creating maps based on just one famous album cover? Dylan Moriarty for one believes that there are lots of other iconic album covers out there which are just waiting to be given a little cartographic love. 

Dylan Moriarty's Covers article includes a number of examples of maps he has created inspired by iconic album covers. Among these examples is a fantastic interactive map which allows you to create a map of your town inspired by the Clash's London Calling album cover art. Click on your town on the interactive map and you can create a Clash inspired map (like the Long Beach Calling map above).

Covers includes a number of maps inspired by other iconic album covers. It even includes an interactive map which allows you to create your own map inspired by Pink Floyd’s famous Dark Side of the Moon album cover. Other maps in the article are inspired by Velvet Underground’s debut album and Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings And Food album cover.