“Here There Be Robots” — A Victorian-Style Map of Mars

Designer Eleanor Lutz — whose animal breathing animations you may have seen before — has hand-drawn an amazing, Victorian-style map of Mars, which combines the romance of ancient maps with modern data about Mars’ geographical features and humanity’s rover landings there.

In a blog post on her Tabletop Whale site, she provides some detail about the design:

To add a little something extra, I included the history of each place name on the map. Martian craters are named after famous scientists (for large craters) or small villages on Earth (small craters). Since the base map is hand-drawn I also added an overlay of actual NASA topographic imagery. This way even if some of my lines are a little off, you can still see what the actual ground looks like underneath.

It should be noted that this is not a full map of Mars, but rather a section of it. Here is a comparable area of Earth, to give you an idea of what the Mars map covers.

The map can be purchased at Redbubble in a variety of formats, including a photographic print ($7–$36 depending on size), a hardcover journal ($20), a coffee mug ($15), an iPhone case/skin ($15–$30 depending on style), and more.