From May 30th to June 1st, GRID-Arendal hosted a workshop in Arendal bringing together world-renowned cartographers and designers to work collaboratively on the Arctic Permafrost Atlas. The atlas is a main deliverable of the H2020 Nunataryuk project. The Advisory Board for Cartography and Design was setup to gather expert input into all the visual content of the publication. It consists of 5 members: Alex Tait (National Geographic), Adolofo Arranz (Reuters, formerly South China Morning Post), Lauren Tierney (Washington Post), Margaret Pearce (independent cartographer), Oliver Uberti (independent designer). During the workshop, 3 of the members (Tait, Uberti, and Pearce) were able to travel to Arendal. The workshop was also attended by Paul Overduin (a senior permafrost scientists from AWI).
Each day was divided into two working blocks. Each block was assigned to a specific chapter of the atlas. During the working sessions, all the visuals and content of that chapter will be reviewed, discussed, and annotated for required changes by the cartography and design experts. The sessions were also joined by the editor and designer and writers of the publication at GRID-Arendal. The presence of the writers and Overduin from AWI allowed all the discussions to be grounded in science. In total, 74 unique visuals were discussed and reviewed. Some visuals only need small adjustments, whereas others will require significant changes. Besides individual spreads in the atlas, the group also discussed the general layout of the publication (chapter dividers, the use of photographs, text layout, printing recommendations, and outreach and audience considerations).
At lunch, everyday, one of the experts gave a presentation. Alex Tait from National Geographic presented on Monday. Oliver Uberti on Tuesday, and Margaret Pearce on Wednesday. The presentations were 45 minutes long and followed by a Q&A. The talks focused on science outreach, communication, design, mapping and cartography. They were attended by GRID-Arendal staff, but the invitation was also extended through online links to all natural and social scientists from the Nunataryuk project, especially Early Career Researchers (ECRs). Unfortunately due to technical issues the first day, external participants had challenges joining the meeting. This was fixed, and the second and third presentations were well attended!
Next steps:
All the comments on the visuals and recommendations were collected on paper and are now in the process of being reviewed. The atlas will be published in May 2023. There remains enough to implement all the changes. There will be one more online round of review on the visuals with the Advisory Board at the end of 2022, before layout and copy-editing.