Maps and Legends

I’ve been creating maps for facilities, events, transportation and museums since 2004. Either as an individual illustrator or on a team. My approach is to create a map that is both branded to the client as well as functional to the visitor.

January 2023: Map by Lin Wilson of the new and completely restored Seven Acres Dairy in Paoli, Wisconsin

Map by Lin Wilson of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Map by Lin Wilson of EAA Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin

Mapping MSP (Minneapolis St. Paul airport). Design and Illustration by Lin Wilson, Curtis Whaley and John Nichols.

MSP map, Terminal 1

Milwaukee Art Museum campus map: Information Designer and Illustrator: Lin Wilson, Illustrator: Curtis Whaley

I love mapping places. As a kid, I loved the Six Flags theme park map. It’s so cool to do this sometimes for a living. Occasionally I will create a map for a client, I call this area of my practice, “Maps and Legends.”

“One of my favorite research tools is to ask floor staff what they think the problem areas are in their facility. They see issues everyday, like people not finding the exit or a bathroom, or just getting confused by the architecture or wayfinding, or lack of. Their insights are gold.” - Lin Wilson

Maps are copyright by various holders. None of the maps on this page are to be relied on for guidance as there may be more updated versions at the client sites.

Map for Ten Chimneys Estate in Wisconsin by Lin Wilson. Agency, Branding and Typography: Planet Propaganda

Maps for the Minneapolis Institute of Art interactive exhibit on Africa. Illustrators: Lin Wilson, Daniel Huffman

When Photos of Your Product Aren't Saying, 'Buy Me'

The photo above is a box former. It has a "servo driven high-precision THK linear rail plunger mounting system for absolute head-to-cavity positioning". Huh? That's an elevator speech designed to make me get off a few floors early. The company makes box forming machines for the packaging industry. You need one if you want to make 120 pizza boxes a minute. They'd love to sell many of these machines, but as you can see in the header of this post, the photos of these devices aren't winning beauty contests, or even a hint at what they're capable of. 

How do you market a machine that makes boxes? By showing what the machine does, not a photo of the machine.

Explain the result of the technology, in this case, with endless loops of mini gif animations to give a customer as many times as they need to understand the what the machine creates. - Lin Wilson / Madison, WI

Animated gif of the formed box

Animated gif of a wrapper being formed

Animated gif of an endloader box

Animated gif of a bag trimmer

Gif animations by Lin Wilson. Big thanks to art director Ken Young in Atlanta for really getting into the details of how the animations need to summarize a process in a simple way, but show some essential details.