Friday, October 19, 2012

Food: An Atlas

Update: the project reached its goal and will be funded and printed! They're now working towards stretch goals increase the print run. 

I pretty much had to sign on as a backer of Food: An Atlas. It combines so many things that I love: food, information graphics, alternative publishing models, local independent organizations ... oh, and the cover and book design are by one of my local independent designer friends (queridomundo.com).

And come on: it's got a map of America's "Beershed" (the sources of the ingredients that go into beer). Which reminds me: if you're local and homebrewing, let me know — I want to come over and take pictures.
America's Beershed. From Food: An Atlas via Edible Geography



From the project's Kickstarter page:
"Food: An Atlas is a collection of over 60 maps (and growing!) cooperatively-created by the guerrilla cartography community.... Dealing with subjects as varied as global cropland distribution, Los Angeles’s historic agrarian landscape, community supported fisheries in Massachusetts, the redistribution of food surpluses in Italy, and Taco Trucks of East Oakland, its chapters focus on food productionfood distributionfood security and cuisine."
Map section: Urban Agriculture Projects in San Francisco. From Food: An Atlas via Kickstarter.com



The Kickstarter campaign ends on Tuesday, and the project has almost reached its goal. (For those unfamiliar with Kickstarter: it's a way to crowdsource project funding. Like PBS, you generally get a thank-you at each pledge level, plus the warm fuzzy feeling of making something awesome happen. Unlike PBS, it's all-or-nothing: if the project reaches its funding goal by the deadline it sets, your credit card gets charged at that time; if it doesn't reach the goal, one gets charged.)

A $10 pledge gets you a digital copy of the book (and your location gets added to the collaborators map in the atlas itself); a $25 pledge gets you that plus a copy of the printed book (estimated delivery in December). The money goes to cover the printing costs, and any profit gets donated to a food justice organization. (The collaborators are all donating their time.) Read more about the project on its Kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1276177353/food-an-atlas-0