Illustrative Maps are a great addition to many books and magazine articles. They lend an artistic flair as well as providing visual orientation for the reader. My maps feature a hand-drawn look that complements historical subjects in particular. I can create custom maps with a 19th century look. Or I can take a dry scientific subject and enhance it with a colorful and informative map. My favorite creative maps are the ones that take a birds-eye view. Here are some the projects I've completed in recent years.
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. Published by Harcourt, Inc. This birds-eye view map was rendered in both watercolor and ink versions for the paperback and hardcover issues. To the Heart of the Nile,
by Pat Shipman
William Morrow
Lake Victoria. These hand-drawn maps added a historical flavor to the tale of Samuel Baker's travels.
Lavinia, by Ursula K. LeGuin, Harcourt, Inc.
The author requested a map illustration with the flavor of 19th century cartography for her fictional account of early Rome.
Africa Array article,
Research Penn State Magazine. An illustrative map of scientific data.
The Far Traveler, by Nancy Marie Brown
Harcourt, Inc. This illustrative map depicts the broad area of the globe that a 12th century Viking woman named Gudrid actually traveled.

Corporate Economies
Research Penn State Magazine
An illustrated map with some humor.

The Water Cycle. A three-dimensional illustrative map to show the basics of precipitation and evaporation. A Good Horse Has No Color, Nancy Marie Brown. Here, I created a complex three-part map to zoom in by stages. Grayson, by Lynne Cox
Harcourt, Inc. This map illustration required a distorted viewpoint to capture the entire story.
The Unnameables, by Ellen Booraem, Harcourt, Inc. Both a 19th century style map and a birds-eye view map dovetailed neatly with this author's fictional account of a New England town.