BRITISH LIBRARY DELIVERS..

An early Christmas present was delivered by the British Library this week. It unveiled a million images that it has placed onto a free to use Flickr account.

Anyone can now browse, download, re-image or edit through the collection of illustrations. Each illustration is taken from the massive British Library resources of 17th to 19th century books it has in the archive in London.

I had an hour of browsing and curated my own collection of interesting map images below.
Click an image and it will open the British Library collection in a new tab.

#1: Leonardo Da Vinci's World Map. Da Vinci produced this between 1513 and 1515 (exact date not known). This is an incredibly important map as it is a) the first to name 'America' on it, b) the earliest map showing the West coast of America unconnected to Asia.
Drawn on a strange construction of what are known as Da Vinci-Reuleaux triangles. This is one of the two maps that when placed side by side make up two halves of the globe as Da Vinci saw them - a lot different to our usual representation of the world on a flattened cylinder.
This style of map based on Reuleaux geometry inspired Cahill Butterfly projection maps in the early 20th century.

Image taken from page 84 of 'A larger history of the United States of America to the close of President Jackson's administration ... Illustrated, etc' published 1885

#2: A very nice illustrated Edinburgh map, still showing agriculture in the city centre!
Image taken from page 279 of 'Cassell's Old and New Edinburgh ... Illustrated, etc' published in 1880


#3: The Earth as imagined by the Greeks in the time of Homer (not Simpson, the other one!). Interesting to see how they got the Mediterranean pretty spot on in mapping terms. 
Image taken from page 18 of '[The Countries of the World: being a popular description of the various continents, islands, rivers, seas, and peoples of the globe. [With plates.]]'


#4: A really detailed map of the Balkans - love the simple use of colour for internal political boundaries. Also note the European side of Turkey (Eastern Thrace) is called Rumilla - something I cannot find any links to on the web? Research for another day..
Image taken from page 159 of '[History of the Russian Empire from its foundation by Ruric the Pirate to the accession of the Emperor Alexander II ... With ... engravings.]'


#5: An interesting collection of lakes and inland waters in Eastern Hemisphere (shame they didn't have the plate for the West included in the collection). Shows the truly massive scale of both the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Image taken from page 101 of "[Appleton's European Guide Book illustrated. Containing ... maps, etc.]" published in 1879


I may put up a second blog post in a few days with other types of images - but I love maps so this was an obvious first choice.

There are so many interesting plates/scans in there that you really have to go and take a look yourself if you have any interest whatsoever in illustration or early graphic design.

Next year the British Library are going to launch a crowdsourcing ability or app so that anyone can go and look at the collection, and append notes to the diagrams/illustrations etc

Thank you British Library!

iOS7 - Iconic?

Before I start on this iOS stuff, I'd like to put a plug in for a great Blog that should interest any of you that have any feelings whatsoever for Manchester. Manchester UK that is, not Manchester, Ontario or Manchester, New Hampshire or any other part of the world that shares a city or town with the same name. 

It's called Skyliner. Written by someone I don't know personally but regularly read - great stories of little known parts of the city, buildings and long lost moments. If you live in Manchester, I'd say you need to have a browse through it. It will change your view of the city.

So, on with iOS7.

The download? Where to begin?

I know I live on a far flung hill, high above Manchester and the internet connection is as good as it gets for the peace and quiet it affords (actually not so bad these days at 1 Mb+ down) but how long?????? It took from 8pm last night to 11:30 for the upgrade to come in and install itself. You have been warned.

As you can imagine I was expecting a fanfare when it re-booted and some sort of dancing ladies show.

The very first thing I really liked about iOS7 is the fact that they have enhanced 'Find My iPhone' - the iPad I use cannot now be reset or cleared without using the password that only I know. I'm sure there will be ways around it for the most hardened thief and their gangs, but if you ever lose or have your device stolen it should serve to make accounts secure for a while longer whilst you go in and reset the passwords.

Didn't get the fanfare though.

However, the icons and the colour gradients are (mostly) beautiful. Operating systems have long been stuck in trying to make every icon and menu item look as shiny as possible with eliptical layers but not iOS 7. Instead they have gone arty and 'flat'. Gradients and colour phasing is everywhere. I like it I must say. Here's an example.

They have also simplified the look of almost all icons too. I'd say successfully. Some might take some getting used to, but in large part, they are still very obvious what they relate to though one or two are too simplistic and miss the point. Example 2 here clearly is about Videos? 

But why oh why didn't they include a play symbol like all other video/mp3 icons everywhere on the web? After all, the play button has been around a long long time.

That would surely be better?

One icon I really REALLY (get it Google?) don't like now is the one for Google Chrome that I use rather than Safari - being mainly a PC user and having an Android phone - it has a white background and when sat on the quick launch bar at the bottom simply looks out of place. I'm sure that will change quickly.

SHAPE SHIFTING - OR AT LEAST A LITTLE NUDGE?

The one change that I didn't get straight away was the fact that someone has come up with a great idea to slightly shift the background image if you move the iPad. This creates a 3D illusion effect. Just as 3D TV is going out of fashion (did it ever really come in?) Apple have decided to bring their home screens to life. I like it, not necessary, but aesthetically very pleasing. Design for designs sake almost - not my usual reaction to this - but I just keep finding myself wriggling the iPad slightly to witness the effect. It is probably better on my setup as I have a close up photo of grafitti on a wall so the icons literally look like stickers on the wall. With a photo of a cute dog or a family snap it probably doesn't work?

USEFUL NOTIFICATIONS - AT LAST!

Apple had never managed to match Android on the use of notifications but iOS 7 now allows you to swipe the alert from Facebook or Gmail and go straight to the app. Finally, don't just tell me about it, let me do something about it.

The notification panel is a bit too much for me, but I'm sure some will really like the integration - and apparently it is better on the iPhone with missed calls/texts etc. I like the inclusion of weather - though it isn't a patch on Android tablet offerings to be honest.

The bottom swipe panel is also much much improved. Now you can swipe on the iPad and turn bluetooth or wi-fi on and off quickly rather than having to resort to settings all the time.

The AppStore or clunkily named iTunes Store 'look and feel' is brilliant - you can tell this is where they make that recurring income!

There's more, much more - like the ability to shoot square Instagram friendly photos... I'll be back to review the deeper things I find in a few days time.