The prestigious British Cartographic Society (BCS) Award was presented to The Highland Council at the 2010 awards ceremony held last week during the Society’s Annual Symposium at the Village Hotel and Conference Centre in Nottingham.The BCS has recognised innovative use of mapping at the recently held BCS Symposium entitled “Talking with Maps” that attracted over 100 mapping professionals and enthusiasts. The winning individuals and organisations, announced during the awards ceremony, were rewarded for demonstrating their innovation and excellence through the successful use of better map design.
Across the following four award categories, the winners were:
Stanfords Award for Printed Mapping: XYZ Digital Mapping Company awarded for their Postcode Sector Map – Sheet 22.
Avenza Award for Electronic Mapping: British Antarctic Survey for Polarview – Antarctic Node
John C. Bartholomew Award: Dr Kenneth Field from Kingston University and Dr Linda Beale from Imperial College London for their Geo-Genealogy Irish Surnames Map.
Ordnance Survey MasterMap® Award for Better Mapping: The Highland Council for ‘Inverness City Main Developments 2010’. The Council claimed this award for creatively using OS MasterMap® to define colours and textures to render a semi-realistic impression of the city of Inverness whilst maintaining the precision of the original product. The judges agreed that through using innovative techniques within design, The Highland Council produced a visually striking map clearly displaying the richness of Ordnance Survey MasterMap® data alongside modern design.
The Highland Council subsequently went on to become overall winner of all four categories to claim the prestigious BCS Award. On receiving this award, Peter Alexander of The Highland Council remarked, “We are thrilled to be recognised as overall winner of the BCS awards especially in light of the extremely intense competition.”
A further award presented during the ceremony was The Henry Johns Award. This was presented to authors Alexander Kent of Southampton University and Peter Vujakovic of Canterbury Christ Church University for the best article in The Cartographic Journal entitled ‘Stylistic Diversity in European 1:50 000 State Topographic Maps’.
In addition to the Annual Awards, the Society also conferred Honorary Fellowship on Ken Atherton in recognition of his many years of devoted service to the Society. Since becoming a member in 1983 he has fulfilled many roles and remains heavily involved with the Symposium as a key member of the Programme Committee.
Cliff Nicklin, Vice President and Acting Awards Officer, commented ‘this year has seen a high standard in the awards and it is a pleasure to see an entry from local government win the coveted BCS Award. We are eager for more organisations to enter their maps for the awards and hope that the success of The Highland Council will encourage this’.
Information on the awards is available at http://www.cartography.org.uk
Entries are accepted from non-members as well as BCS members. The deadline for the 2011 awards will be received February 2011.
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The BCS Symposium is organised by Training4GIS, the training and consultancy division of The GeoInformation Group.
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The British Cartographic Society, was founded in 1963, to promote the better compilation, use and understanding of maps, in all their forms. As part of its charitable aims the BCS undertakes to promote an understanding of the principles of cartography, encourage greater awareness of the importance of maps and to encourage their wider use.
As a learned society, the BCS provides its members with a journal and newsletter as well as opportunities for increasing their own awareness and skills through its programme of events, including the annual 3 day symposium.
The BCS represents UK cartography on behalf of the Royal Society within the International Cartographic Association and is a founder member of the UK Geo Forum, which promotes the wider geographic information community.
