Maps/Cartography Portfolio
What Sort of Books Have Maps?
Traditionally, maps are most often found in fantasy novels! Most of my cartography portfolio thus focuses on fantasy maps. High fantasy novels with their entirely new worlds and settings often use maps to help guide the reader into the world. However, maps are growing in popularity (especially with the rise of TikTok). They’re a piece of art that can accompany the book and make the paperbacks and hardcovers stand out.
While most of my maps have been for fantasy novels, I’ve also done maps of small towns and college campuses for contemporary romance series.
How Do You Make Your Maps?
I hand draw my maps in Photoshop. I don’t use any other software, although I will occasionally use Creative Fabrica elements or decorative fonts to help me create the borders. My maps are mostly drawn in black-and-white, since I work mostly with maps for books. Those mostly get printed in black-and-white, which is why I favor the line art style. It’s easily readable in grey scale! When I make color maps, I want to make sure that they can also “read” in black-and-white, since some ereaders don’t have color.
My maps are mostly drawn at the common trim size of 6 by 9 inches, but I can do larger sizes upon request. Please visit my maps page for more information about commissions and pricing.