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Breweries of the World

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Why we love it


We love this map because it brings a bold aesthetic to otherwise basic point data. It was designed as a large wall hanging (17 ft or more than 5 m wide!) for a brewery tasting room. Here we see an innovative use of the Dorling cartogram approach, a technique for mapping thematic data. It allows the data to be summed up by country and mapped in an eye-catching, abstract way with beautiful symbology. 

Why it works


Bottle tops are scaled as proportional symbols to show the number of breweries per country. This cartogram works because it quickly gives us a sense of the major brewing nations organized by geographical areas and positioned to mimic a world map. Minimal text provides labels and numbers. The bottle tops appear to be strewn across a table, yet are carefully illuminated with a light source from the top left.

Important steps

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Requirements

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Tips and tricks

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Ken Field, map author

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