We have tried to answer the most commonly asked question’s here, if you can’t find the answer you want then contact us and we’ll get back to you straight away or try our blog.

Encapsulation or Lamination: What we refer to as encapsulation is often referred to as lamination. In our terms encapsulation is when the map is sandwiched between 2 sheets of relatively thick clear plastic. This offers excellent protection of the map making it virtually impossible to tear. Lamination we refer to when a very thin plastic coating is applied to the surface of the map when it is litho printed. Again this offers a level of protection although you can tear this if you try. Both surfaces have a write on wipe off surface.

Framing

Postcodes

What is a Map Projection?: A map projection is a way of transforming the 3-D globe onto a flat sheet of paper or computer screen. In transferring the shape of land or oceans, a mathematical approach is needed to ensure that each point on the globe appears at the right point on the paper. The systematic process for doing this is known as map projection.

When you project the real shape of the world by plotting it on a map, you can’t avoid introducing distortions. For example, you can keep distances between points correct, or relative areas correct, or angles correct, but you can’t keep more than one of these properties at any one time. Different map projections keep different characteristics correct and some of them are hybrids - they combine different properties of several projections.

You need to choose the right projection if you map anything larger than a small country on a medium-sized sheet of paper. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ projections to use - only bad choices for particular purposes. For world maps, if your map is aimed at historians, geographers, ecologists and for most general purposes, you’ll probably need to use an equal area (or equivalent) projection, especially if it’s a distribution map. If it’s to be used for navigation or by engineers, then you should use a projection which keeps angles correct (conformal). For maps of small areas, the projection chosen becomes less important because the

Distortions reduce as the area of the world shown gets smaller.If you need to show the whole world on a map, then try using one of these equal area projections: Cylindrical equal-area, Mollweide’s, Sinusoidal, or Hammer-Aitoff. Another useful projection which is not strictly equal area is the Robinson projection which keeps the world’s shape familiar. An orthographic projection looks like a view of the globe. The Peters projection, although equal area, introduces shape distortions which make the shape of some regions of the world unfamiliar. Mercator’s projection shouldn’t generally be used for world maps because it distorts areas, especially in high latitudes.

If you are interested in finding out more about Cartographic Principles and how maps are made can we recommend 'Cartography-an introduction' written by Giles Darkes and our own Mary Spence MBE? You can find out more about this handy book here.