‘The Secret Language of Maps’ with Carissa Carter - Stanford d.school Spotlight

In the third spotlight of the Stanford d.school guides; Carissa Carter, author of The Secret Language of Maps: How to Tell Visual Stories with Data helps us navigate the far horizons and surprisingly detailed depths of maps.

Maps are biased towards any number of variables - often driven by agenda or intention of the mapmakers. Carissa acts as a cartographer of the multi-faceted fields of mapmaking - discussing the dynamic effects of our maps on our real world perception and inversely our lenses and intention on our maps, their uses, gems of wisdom, and pitfalls.

For an introductory example to see our how our world can portrayed in novel often wacky maps for yourself and your students, Carissa recommends https://worldmapper.org/.

Carissa Carter is the Academic Director and an Adjunct Professor at the Stanford d.school. In this role she guides the development of the d.school’s pedagogy, leads its instructors, and shapes its class offering. She teaches courses on the intersection of data and design, designing with emerging technologies, and design for climate change.

Carissa was one of the co-leaders of Stanford 2025, a multi-year d.school project that envisioned the future of higher education. Her work on designing with machine learning and blockchain has earned multiple design accolades, including Fast Company Innovation and Core77 Design Awards.

Carissa’s first career was in the geosciences. As a geomorphologist she studied subglacial deposits, slot canyon incision, and bedforms and cross-bedding. She continues to pursue projects at the crossover between design and science. Maps, and the experiences they create, are a consistent thread in her work. Her book, The Secret Language of Maps: How to Tell Visual Stories with Data is forthcoming in April 2022. Carissa holds a B.A. in Geoscience from Williams College, an M.S. in Earth Science from U.C. Santa Cruz, and an M.S. Engineering–Product Design from Stanford University. She’s taken a photo at 6:06pm every day, for more than a decade.

Hosted by The Learning Future’s very own Louka Parry, indulge your cortex in some modern thinking at the forefront of educational design with our amazing guest.

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