At the risk of appearing confrontational, can I suggest that there is a very much better case on style and 'significance' grounds for preferring the superseded OS 1:25,000 Pathfinder/Second Series over the Explorer successors (which, incidentally, exist in three styles: style 1, used on the first five sheets, issued in 1994, is actually a minor modification of the pathfinder!). The Explorer design is simply a variation on that for the 1:50,000 Landranger (which has its ancestry in an attempt to brighten up the Pathfinder in the early 1980s), whereas the Pathfinder represents possibly the most sophisticated version of a type of man once much more common in Britain, though by no means confined to it, which uses a *non-process* four-colour scheme, characterised by roads (or most roads) and the contours being printed from the same plate (which also provided some stipple for foreshore and dunes, etc). In the Pathfinder the green plate provided both wood infill and public rights of way. This basic principle was employed both for a lot of British military mapping around the time of WWII (the Second War Revision of GSGS 3907 is the most often met with), and elsewhere: e.g. French 1:25,000, some New Zealand 1-inch, and, although separate printings are used, the same principle is used on the Russian 1:100,000s which many of us have ceome familiar with recently!
The Explorers have deservedly sold well, as they are overall a nicely-designed map, and not constrained by the butt-jointed sheetlines of the Pathfinders, and they seem on their way to replacing the 1:50,000 Landranger as the standard topographical map of Britain for most purposes, but they have only been around for 13 years or so: relatively early days!
Richard Oliver
________________________________
From: A forum for issues related to map & spatial data librarianship on behalf of Bill Johnson
Sent: Tue 1/29/2008 11:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Map 'Graphic Classics'
Giles et al,
I hesitate to include National Geographic mapping as an inclusion
although their land mapping with names could be said to be iconic. But
in my youth when presumably I was cartographically impressionable I was
taken aback by the NG maps of the Oceans. The Pacific Ocean Floor was
published October, 1969, and the Atlantic Ocean Floor in 1973. Maybe I
was carried away by the vertical exaggeration and artistic flair. I
would also like to make a plug for our own OS Explorer series; a great
advancement on the previous Pathfinder.
Bill
Bill Johnson
Map Library
University Library
University of Portsmouth
PO1 2ST
Telephone: 023 9284 3630
Email: [log in to unmask]
|