The ICA Commission on Atlases (CoA) proudly announces the publication of The Atlas Cookbook – 10 ingredients how to edit an atlas.

The intention of The Atlas Cookbook is to advise atlas authors in a general way:

• to give an overview over the realization phases,
• to show how to start a new atlas project (which is always the hardest part),
• and how to deal with conceptual, organizational, graphical or publishing issues.

What’s in it?

We divided The Atlas Cookbook in 10 chapters, which reflect a viable and practicable way to carry out an atlas project. The chapters start with Organization & Marketing, followed by Editorial Aspects. After the administrative issues are addressed, the book focuses on Atlas Use and Data Management. Other components to be considered in the atlas process include the use of Multimedia Elements and the Atlas GUI Design, followed by detailed chapters on Map Design and on Interactive Atlas Functionality. And finally, Prototyping and Evaluation describes the last steps before publishing the atlas.

A peak into chapter 8 by Ernst Spiess.

For whom?

The Atlas Cookbook is intended for atlas makers, map producers, and all kind of cartographers; it can be read as a whole, but even just a single chapter can help!

The Atlas Cookbook is written at a management level, not in a technical way. Most comments and recommendations apply to current and emerging digital technologies, but many sections are also valid and useful for editing printed atlases.

And where to get?

To get a digital copy, we offer the The Atlas Cookbook as a PDF on the CoA Website. You can download it for free and use it according to the CC license.

Additionally, we produced a printed book in a limited edition of 200 copies, supported by ICA and ETH Zurich. If you’d like to receive a printed edition (also free of charge), please send your postal address together with some kind words and good reasons to René Sieber, the current chairman of the CoA: sieberr [at] ethz.ch