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Stamen Design
@stamen.com
560 followers 50 following 48 posts
We are a data visualization and cartography studio with over 20 years of experience helping people find and tell more beautiful stories with data. Learn more at stamen.com

Mastodon: vis.social/@stamen
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stamen.com
A big congrats to our own Kelsey Taylor, just elected to the Board of Directors of the North American Cartographic Information Society! For the next 2 years, Kelsey will help guide the direction of one of the most important & beloved organizations in the mapping community.

nacis.org/our-society/...
A black-and-white headshot of a woman on a yellow background, overlaid with the text "Elected!" and "NACIS: North American Cartographic Information Society"
November 14, 2025 at 5:29 PM
stamen.com
In our latest blog post, we share our philosophy of dark mode basemaps. What are dark maps good for, and why might you need one? How do you design a dark mode map that is both beautiful and functional? All this and more, now on the blog at stamen.com/stamens-dark...
A dark-colored terrain map overlaid with the text "What makes a dark map style work?" A montage of dark-colored maps overlaid with the text: "The art and science of dark mode cartography, on the blog now"
November 7, 2025 at 5:38 PM
stamen.com
What do we map in the shadows?

Our iconic Toner map style, now in dark mode! Read about how we developed "Toner Dark" and "Toner Blacklite" on the blog now: stamen.com/what-we-map-....

Both styles are available from our friends at @stadiamaps@en.osm.town here: stadiamaps.com/explore-the-....
A screenshot of a black and white map with encroaching shadows around the margins. Overlaid on the map is the text "Dark greetings! (bat emoji) We took our iconic Toner map style..." Another screenshot of a dark map, with the image of two vampires from the TV show "What We Do In The Shadows". Text overlaid on the image says "...into the darkness with two new variations" Screenshot of a dark map with the text "Read more about Toner Dark..." Screenshot of a dark map with the text "... and Toner Blacklite on the Stamen blog"
October 31, 2025 at 4:33 PM
stamen.com
How is a brain like a mountain? Read "Brain Cartography: Mapping a place that everyone knows, but (almost) no one has ever been" here: stamen.com/brain-cartog...
A mysterious map of glowing dots and clouds, overlaid with the text "Knowing where something is isn’t the same as caring where something is..." A mysterious map of a cloud of white dots receding into the distance, overlaid with the text "...but sometimes..." A diagram of a human head showing that the previous images were all different visualizations of the brain. The diagram is overlaid with the text "...seeing is believing." A montage of brain visualizations and charts, overlaid with the text "Learn more about mapping the human brain on the blog!"
October 7, 2025 at 4:59 PM
stamen.com
Stamen Lead Cartographer + Designer Kelsey Taylor ran a data viz and mapping workshop at the recent USGS Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center Summer Symposium in Urbana, IL. Read more about the workshop at stamen.com/data-visuali...

#dataviz #design #maps #science #climate
A photo of several people sitting around tables working on laptops at a mapping workshop. Overlaid on the image is the text "Read about our recent data viz for climate science workshop on the blog now"
September 5, 2025 at 5:18 PM
stamen.com
Stamen recently collaborated with MetroMatch, a transit-first navigation tool focused on identifying destinations within walking distance of transit in U.S. cities. Read about how we redesigned their map for Washington, DC on the blog.

stamen.com/navigate-you...

#maps #transit #WashingtonDC
A map showing subway lines in DC with the text overlaid: "We designed maps for transit-first navigation in Washington, DC" A zoomed-in map of some subway stations and nearby points-of-interest, with the text overlaid: "Read about our collaboration with MetroMatch on the blog"
August 19, 2025 at 4:19 PM
stamen.com
This month #OpenStreetMap turns 21!

To mark the occasion, we dug into our archives to finish part 3 of Stamen's personal history of OSM, covering the years 2016 to the present. Check it out on our blog, including links to part 1 and 2 of the series:

stamen.com/part-3-our-b...
A montage of maps overlaid with the text "Celebrating the 21st anniversary of OpenStreetMap with a new post" A montage of maps overlaid with the text "looking back on Stamen and OpenStreetMap through the years"
August 5, 2025 at 4:49 PM
stamen.com
Read our recap of presentations, inspiration, and upcoming projects from the 2025 @stateofthemapus.bsky.social conference last month in Boston on the blog: stamen.com/stamen-at-st....
A section of a "galaxy brain" meme about basemaps, overlaid with the text "Check out our recap from State of the Map US 2025" A montage of maps overlaid with the text "Read more about the work we presented in Boston on the blog!"
July 16, 2025 at 5:31 PM
stamen.com
The Getty Institute just launched an online publication “Ed Ruscha's Streets of Los Angeles: Artist, Image, Archive, City", which includes several map visualizations we created to explore the vast digitized collection of Ruscha’s photographs of LA over the years: www.getty.edu/publications/ruscha/
The cover image of an online book with the text "Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles: ARTIST IMAGE ARCHIVE CITY" In the background is a photo of a car from the 1970s with rectangular buildings and palm trees in the distance A map of Los Angeles in the style of a Thomas Guide atlas, with 3D extruded lines indicating the streets photographed by artist Ed Ruscha A map zoomed in on Sunset Boulevard with marks along the road indicating the location of photographs in Ed Ruscha's archive, some of which are annotated with the word "tree" where computer image recognition software detected a tree A map of Sunset Boulevard highlighting two locations where Ed Ruscha photographed the same billboards over several decades
July 8, 2025 at 6:14 PM
stamen.com
New on the blog: we say goodbye to one of our oldest mapping tools... by creating a new map to visualize an archive of a half million user generated images! Read "Farewell, Map Stack" here: stamen.com/farewell-map...

Join us at the @stateofthemapus.bsky.social conference this Friday to hear more.
A montage of maps, overlaid with the text "Saying farewell to one of our beloved old map tools" A montage of maps, overlaid with the text "with a new map showcasing 12 years of cartographic creativity" A dark map of the world showing scattered yellow dots everywhere, overlaid with the text "We visualized a half million user-generated images created with our open-source tools." A black-and-white collage of maps overlaid with the text "Explore the archive yourself, and read our tribute to Map Stack on the blog"
June 16, 2025 at 7:12 PM
stamen.com
Stamen has designed a lot of maps across the carto industry over the years. Read about how Stamen uses tooling to debug maps, as we explore how data, tiles, and stylesheets work together to make beautiful maps.

Read now at stamen.com/debugging-10...
How open source tooling empowers our cartography debugging workflows... by allowing for map style comparison... ...and interactive data viz to see your map from a different perspective. Learn more about how we upgraded how we debug on the blog
May 1, 2025 at 4:17 PM
stamen.com
We worked with the Science Museum to develop an interactive exhibit about The Congruence Engine, a 3-year research effort to digitally connect industrial heritage collections across the UK. Read more about our collaboration, focused on the industrial city of Bradford:

stamen.com/navigating-p...
Telling the story of how technology and people-power unlocked new insights for historians Read more about The Connection Engine for Science Museum
March 25, 2025 at 3:28 PM
stamen.com
Today at Harvard, our own Eric Rodenbeck joins a conversation with Harvard University Graduate School of Design on "Engaging Spaces: Exploring Digital + Analog Responsive Environments"
Master in Design Studies presents OPEN CONVERSATIONS ENGAGING SPACES: EXPLORING DIGITAL + ANALOG RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS Allen Sayegh, Eric Rodenbeck, and Marina Otero in conversation with K. Michael Hays, John May, and Malkit Shoshan. TUESDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2025 4:00-6:00 PM GUND HALL, STUBBINS ROOM 112
February 18, 2025 at 5:38 PM
stamen.com
On the blog: behind the scenes details on how we’ve migrated Columbia University’s Mapping Historical New York from raster to vector rendering. Read it now on the blog at stamen.com/vector-beesw....

#maps #basemaps #design #cartography #columbia #historicalmaps #newyork
A map of New York overlaid with the text "How we did it: vector beeswarm dot density data visualization" A zoomed in screenshot of a spiral of colored dots with the text: "Learn more about the technical details on the blog now"
February 13, 2025 at 5:58 PM
stamen.com
Happy b-day to #OpenStreetMap, the free, volunteer-created map of the world!

We've worked w/ OSM data since the very beginning, and a few years ago we wrote a 2-part history of Stamen's long relationship with OSM:
stamen.com/our-brillian...

Stay tuned for part 3 of the series dropping next week!
A montage of nine colorful maps arrayed in a 3 by 3 grid. Each map is a Stamen project using OpenStreetMap data, styled in a different way. A banner of text on top of the montage reads "Happy 20th birthday OpenStreetMap!" in black Helvetica text on top of a bright yellow banner.
August 9, 2024 at 5:00 PM
stamen.com
Sad news. It has come to our attention that the NOAA weather station moored at 0º, 0º (nicknamed "Null Island Buoy") no longer exists! Check out the update at the end of @mappingmashups.bsky.social's Null Island blog post for more details of the buoy's untimely demise.

stamen.com/the-many-liv...
A drawing of the "Null Island Buoy" on a tombstone floating in the ocean. The text on the tombstone says "R. I. P. Null Island Buoy 1998-2021"
August 1, 2024 at 6:25 PM
stamen.com
Now on the blog: "The Many Lives of Null Island", by Stamen Lead Cartographer @mappingmashups.bsky.social

stamen.com/the-many-liv...
Designing an Easter Egg (such as Null Island)... ...is a balance of exclusivity and accessibility, of form versus function. An Easter Egg should be a surprise, a treat, and it should make someone a bit proud of themselves when they find it. It’s not much fun if it’s too hard to find, but if it’s too big and too obvious, it loses all of its charm.
July 23, 2024 at 6:07 PM
stamen.com
Last week @mappingmashups.bsky.social gave a talk about how we recently modernized our basemaps, except for one. Updating Watercolor to a new pipeline would be challenging... but Steve Gifford from Wet Dog Weather wrote some thoughts about how it might be done:

www.wetdogweather.com/2024/06/12/h...
June 13, 2024 at 6:25 PM
stamen.com
This Saturday we'll be at the State of the Map US conference in Salt Lake City!

stateofthemap.us

Ross Thorn will be talking about mapping highway shields using OpenStreetMap data, and Alan McConchie (@mappingmashups.bsky.social) will give an overview of our recent revamp of our basemap styles.
June 5, 2024 at 5:57 PM
stamen.com
New post: "Designing the Avocado of Uncertainty"
stamen.com/designing-th...
May 30, 2024 at 8:05 PM
stamen.com
We just launched a new map with the Economic Innovation Group, showcasing their latest Distressed Communities Index.
Explore interactive maps and dataviz, and read stories that illuminate how local economic conditions correlate with life expectancy, social connections, and more.
eig.org/dci
A screenshot of the Distressed Communities Index interactive map. Each zip code is colored on a spectrum according to whether it is economically distressed or prosperous. A summary text box reads "The United States has 15.6% of its population living in a distressed zip code and 24.4% living in a prosperous zip code."
February 28, 2024 at 6:58 PM
stamen.com
New post: we go behind the scenes of our recently-launched project "Manzanar CloseUp" with Densho.org. Explore the human stories of the Manzanar concentration camp in California where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII.
Read more on our blog: stamen.com/manzanar-upc...
February 14, 2024 at 5:46 PM