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Technology made me cry.

An email I received this morning reminded me that it has been some time since I have contributed to this blog and  that people really want to know how The Melbourne Map project is going.

‘SHOW UP ON MY BLOG’.

I’ve written this note on each weekly page of the diary, but to be honest I haven’t known where to start.

Map making is great fun.    It’s not that I don’t want to share on the blog, I actually have some draft posts written and stories I want to share. Blog epiphanies come to me at 4am – “I should blog about that”– but of course, come 7am the day starts and the motivation to sit and write and deal with the technology of publishing is conveniently overwritten by the exciting work of making the new Melbourne Map.

Whilst I have been on this map making journey before, this time around it is quite different.  Learning how to embrace technology in the form of websites and social media has been a new challenge.

I do believe Melbournians need to, and will want to know about The Melbourne Map but the fact is TECHNOLOGY HAS MADE ME CRY.   They are tears of frustration, however I’m getting over myself and embracing these new media platforms.  WordPress, you will be my friend!

The team, Lewis, Deborah and I are powering along with the research and illustration and I have to say we are having a great time.  We are enjoying Melbourne all over again and discovering amazing people and places to include in this version.

The initial paper selection, planning and set up occurred in August. There were loads of decisions to make that would have a flow on affect down the line so we are being a bit more strategic about these issues than we were for the 1990 version.

Here is a short video of Lewis unwrapping, loading the paper and drawing up the grid.

The area we are drawing within measures around 1.5 metres by 1 metre and we’ve made the difficult decisions about where the map starts and finishes.    We wish that it could be 2 metres wide to fit in an extra street or two, but realistically we have to stop somewhere, so apologies to all those people, streets and buildings that are just outside the border!

On this next video you can see Lewis marking the outlines of a some buildings in the CBD.  This was done in blue pencil and keep in mind these are quick sketches to just plan the outline.  There are several progress videos on The Melbourne Map You Tube channel if you would like to see more and some Video updates on Facebook.

We are busy now doing ground research which entails 9 hour driving stints around different suburbs of Melbourne.  The first area to be drawn in detail is the West side and on my next post I will include some photos of the first illustrations.

Welcome to all our new Melbourne Map enthusiasts, nice to e-meet you.  I’m glad you have joined us on our quest to capture Melbourne in illustrated form at this point in time.

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