Art or Cartogrpahy - What is a map?

[waldronate]

As RobA points out, every map should have been created for a purpose. Time and effort were expended to gather information and produce an artifact. Just throwing together some elements (not matter how harmonious they may be) with a modern paint program produces a piece of art, not a map!

Going one step further on the "art" or "map" topic is my pet peeve: the picture of a map. Too many times I see what would be a nice map, but the artist has chosen to add things like tattered edges, faux stains, and paper grain in an attempt to make the map look like a picture of a map. Without a context in which to communicate the reason that it's a picture of a map rather than a map "this map was passed down through generations, with the important travel paths shown as the stains of countless fingers tracing their journeys", then most of the decoration is likely superfluous.