Yes, this sounds like a cliché, but Maps was actually born on a napkin in De Balie, Amsterdam. In 2007, Having played with personal web clippings and publications in Trails, we were trying to find the logical next step, and found it in the creation of "knowledge maps". Mind you, these are not "mind maps" (pun itd), but rather an attempt at the visualisation of knowledge as a landscape; collect information, create backgrounds (images/drawings/graphs/...) and distribute graphical representations of your information on these backgrounds. The result is a kind of completely visual index, which can be used for personal reference and orientation, or shared with others.
We've actually re-programmed Maps from scratch 4 times, under 3 different project titles. And although the basic concept of visual indexing and a "knowledge landscape" is something that comes back no and then as a feature in other projects, the last iteration of Maps is dormant and no longer usable. But it's definitely not dead, and we're pretty sure we'll live to see at least a 5th version.
A / Z Study
year: 2012
