March 14, 2021.

Hello, this is Caroline, one of the Atlas of Design editors. I want to give an update on the Atlas of Design project and team looking into 2021 and beyond.

Project status updates

We sent Volume 5 of the Atlas of Design to press in the fall of 2020, and copies began shipping to readers in late November. Copies of Volume 5 are currently available in our web store, along with reprints of Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Currently, orders ship within a week. Volume 4 remains out of print since its spectacular sell-out within three months of being printed in 2018.

Project team updates

We the editorial team—myself, Brooke, Vanessa, and Nat—are very proud of Volume 5. We are proud to see such a wonderful final product, and proud of the work that went into developing the essays, the layout, and the overall look and feel. We are thankful to the the contributors, who all followed through on their commitment to collaborate on their map entries and essays despite the sudden challenges raised by the global pandemic. We are also grateful to our fulfilment partners who worked through unprecedented challenges in the shipping business as our book release coincided with the busiest shipping time of such an unusual year. Some current editors will move on to other mappy things, while some of us will continue to support the project alongside new teammates.

In 2021, we will be assembling a new team of editors. Editors of the Atlas of Design don’t just edit the book! Perhaps the title is a misnomer; our editors do everything from publicity to web design to layout to troubleshooting shipping issues. We will be assembling a new team of editors (or “staff” maybe) for the Atlas of Design project. The new team will set the vision and timeline for a sixth volume. As such, we can’t announce any specific timeline right now, or even whether Volume 6 will adhere to our regular two-year publication schedule. That will be up to the next team.

Connect with our mapping community

In the meantime, for all readers who are fascinated with maps (and we know that all of you are!), consider getting involved with our community. The Atlas of Design is a publication of the North American Cartographic Information Society, or NACIS, which is a professional society for cartographers and a community for map-lovers.