The Secret Language of Maps

A highly visual exploration of diagrams and data that helps you understand how "maps" are part of everyday thinking, how they tell stories, and how they can reframe your point of view, from Stanford University's world-renowned d.school.

In The Secret Language of Maps, Carissa Carter provides a simple framework to deconstruct all types of existing maps, and then teaches you to create your own. In this book, maps aren't just geographic, they are also infographic and include all types of diagrams. Any figure that sorts data visually and presents it spatially is a map. Maps are ways of organizing information and figuring out what's important. Even stories can be mapped!

An embedded mystery story about a woman who investigates the disappearance of an old high school friend illustrates how to use different maps to make sense of all types of information. Colorful illustrations bring the story to life and demonstrate how the fictional character's collection of data, properly organized and "mapped," leads her to solve the mystery of her friend's disappearance.

You'll learn how to gather data, organize it, and present it to an audience. You'll also learn how to view the many maps that swirl around our daily lives with a critical eye, aware of the forces that are in play for every creator.

About the Authors

Carissa Carter is a designer, geoscientist, and Academic Director at the Stanford d.school. Carissa drives the d.school's pedagogy and teaches courses on the intersection of data and design, design for climate change, maps, and the visual sorting of information. She helped lead the d.school's seminal Stanford 2025 project on the future of higher education and pursues projects at the crossover between design, science, and emerging technology.

The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, known as the d.school, was founded at Stanford University in 2005. Each year, more than a thousand students from all disciplines attend classes, workshops, and programs to learn how the thinking behind design can enrich their own work and unlock their creative potential.