Antique maps offer today’s graphic designer a visual treasure chest of exceptional imagery. Visual Language’s specially selected maps and charts provide designers a superb resource to convey numerous concepts in an elegant way — from the romance of history, exploration, travel and old-world craftsmanship to the visionary inspiration of the heavens. From the elegant to the idiosyncratic, designers will find a rich variety of fascinating, royaly-free imagery to use in a wide range of projects.
Each Visual Language volume contains 24 digital images each in three resolutions: high, medium and low. The high resolution files are 30MB for RGB color images and 10MB for grayscale images, providing an average image area of 9 1/2” x 12” at 300 dpi. With these superbly detailed, high resolution files, the artist has the opportunity to zoom in and reproduce an area or specific detail within a map.
Designed to capture their viewers’ imagination and define distant realms, antiquarian maps are exquisitely executed, beautifully hand-colored engravings and woodcuts that are filled with sumptuous illustrations, elaborate borders and ornate motifs. Many of the magnificent maps selected for these collections exemplify the skillful blending of scientific achievement and decorative beauty which characterizes the Golden Age of Cartography. Cartography was an art form that brought together scientific discoveries and the political, mythological and religious belief systems of their time. Surviving from several centuries, these maps and charts now delight us with their lavish decoration and amaze us with their information, much of it surprisingly accurate, although the misconceptions offer irresistable charm.
Visual Language has worked closely with national libraries and private collectors worldwide in order to identify, locate and document the collections of rare maps and charts. The original maps were photographed by Visual Language staff using a 4” x 5” view camera to best capture the intricate details of the engravings and hand-coloring. To maintain the highest quality standards possible, each image was then individually drum-scanned, expertly retouched and color-balanced. The superbly detailed maps are each presented as a large, uncompressed TIFF file, suitable for high-quality print reproduction at 9.5” x 12” using a 175-200 line screen. In addition, low and medium resolution versions of each image are provided in the JPEG format. All CD's are compatible with Macintosh® and Windows®.
Visual Language is the source for the highest quality antique map and related imagery available anywhere.
New and upcoming collections on CD-ROM include:
Antique Maps of the World: 1531-1680
Antique Maps of the World: 1680-1898
Antique Celestial Maps
Antique Maps of Europe
Antique Maps of Africa and Asia
Antique Maps of the Americas
Extraordinary Cartographic Motifs
To order an image product from the Visual Language Library, please call Image Club Graphics at 1-800-661-9410. For additional product information, call 818-431-2777.
The low res files included in this folder are identified as follows:
V1PG1666.TIF—World Map, Pieter Goos, 1666.
From Antique Maps of the World: 1531-1680, Volume I of the Visual Language Library
V2MM1646.TIF—World Map, Matthaus Merian, 1646.
From Antique Maps of the World: 1531-1680, Volume I of the Visual Language Library
V3GS1730.TIF—World Map, Georg Matthaus Seutter, 1730.
From Antique Maps of the World: 1680-1898, Volume II of the Visual Language Library
V4AC1708.TIF—Celestial Chart, Andreas Cellarius, 1708.
From Antique Celestial Maps, Volume III of the Visual Language Library
V5JS1676.TIF—Map of the Roman Empire, John Speed, 1676.
From Antique Maps of Europe, Volume IV of the Visual Language Library
V6JH1707.TIF—Map of Asia, John Baptiste Homann, 1707.
From Antique Maps of Africa & Asia, Volume V of the Visual Language Library
V7PV1730.TIF—Chart of Central America, Pieter van der Aa, c.1730.
From Antique Maps of the Americas, Volume VI of the Visual Language Library
V8MOTIF1.TIF—Four examples of Map Motifs.
From Extraordinary Cartographic Motifs, VolumeVII of the Visual Language Library
V9MOTIF2.TIF—Atlas Figure.
From Extraordinary Cartographic Motifs, VolumeVII of the Visual Language Library
The large sample map image included with this software program is a 42 MB file. It is the same quality and size as other maps and charts included on the Antique Map discs in the Visual Language Library.
This high res file is identified as follows:
V0HJ1695.LRG—Map of Scandinavia, H. Jaillot, 1695.
From Antique Maps of Europe, Volume IV of the Visual Language Library
To order an image product from the Visual Language Library, please call Image Club Graphics at 1-800-661-9410.
