Hilarious "Home Metro Map"

Innovative graphic design of transit map in memory of 2020 home quarantine days within apartment unit

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This made-up map is designed in memory of the quarantine period for COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, during which my wife and I seldom went outdoors and spent most our time staying at home. Inspired by the metro transit maps, we created this product displaying the major areas, furniture, and appliances in my rectangular apartment unit, connected by several fictive metro lines. Considering the geographic scale, the entire unit is regarded as an imaginary city, based on which many details are designed: the metro stations are named as individual places within a city; the order of the metro lines follows the progress of urban development; and the fixed boundary of city wall reflects the geographical barriers. Also, a locator map is made to provide broader geographic information, with designs turning the whole apartment building into an island country, with real lands as marine areas. Besides the laughter, we also hope this hilarious map could further raise some educational reminders, of the significance of practices to stay healthy and fight against the pandemic scientifically, such as wearing face masks, practicing social distancing, and using sanitizer.

This map was ranked top 2% out of over 600 submissions during 2020 Esri User Conference Map Gallery, and was admitted into UW-Madison 12th Digital Salon.

Click to view the map on Esri User Conference 2020 Map Gallery, NACIS 2020 General Map Gallery, and UW-Madison Digital Salon 2021. It was also physically displayed in UW-Madison College Library (2021-2022), as the picture above.