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Telling Stories with Maps: Allen Carroll on the Art of Map-Based Storytelling
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Welcome back to the show! In this week’s episode, I chat with Allen Carroll, former Chief Cartographer at National Geographic and part of Esri’s StoryMapsteam. We talk about his new book, Telling Stories with Maps, which explores how maps can communicate meaning, emotion, and narrative. Allen shares his journey from analog map design to interactive, multimedia storytelling—and how digital tools are transforming the way we visualize place and data. We also discuss design choices, the balance between creativity and accessibility, and why storytelling is at the heart of effective communication. It’s a fascinating look at the intersection of geography, design, and technology.
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Transcript
Introduction to Storytelling with Maps
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back the Policy Biz Podcast. Once again, I'm your host, John Schwabisch. On this week's episode of the show, we turn to maps. That's right, we're gonna talk about maps a lot today.
00:00:24
Speaker
ah In particular, I am joined by Alan Carroll, who is the author of the new book from Esri, Telling Stories with Maps, Lessons from a Lifetime of Creating Place-Based Narratives. Now, you might think you're coming to this episode with an interview with a guy who works at Esri, works with ArcGIS tools, and it's just all going to be about ArcGIS. No, that is not the case.
What Constitutes a Story?
00:00:49
Speaker
This is not just about Esri tools. You're not just going to learn about how to use the story maps feature and in Esri tools. That's not what this is about. This is a broader conversation about what are stories?
00:01:02
Speaker
What does it take to create a good map? How do you tell stories with maps? Is data visualization and storytelling actually a thing? Is that what we always mean when we combine these words, data and data visualization and stories?
00:01:16
Speaker
We really get into a lot of it. um I really enjoyed this conversation with Alan and actually I really enjoyed this book with maps. um There are not many data visualization books about maps out there that I would put sort of like as my go-to book. I mean, the go-to book,
00:01:31
Speaker
is Kenneth Fields Cartography. That is the book. That is the book that i tell everybody to read. If you really want to get into mapping and data visualization, that's the book you need. um I'm still pondering this a little bit, but I think Alan's book might be number two on my list. That's how much I enjoyed this book, how much I learned from this book.
00:01:50
Speaker
I mean, also that I just kind of generally agree with his philosophy when it comes to storytelling and data. So I think you're gonna find this discussion really interesting.
00:02:01
Speaker
um I really think you should check out the book. It's also just a beautiful book to hold, um really nice images, visualizations, data throughout the entire book. So here's my conversation with Alan Carroll, author of the new book, Telling Stories with Maps.
00:02:17
Speaker
Hey, Alan, great to meet you. Thanks for coming on the show.
Alan Carroll's Early Career and National Geographic
00:02:20
Speaker
Hey, John, it's my pleasure. I'm very excited to talk with you. There are not a lot of good books on data maps, and so I'm excited to have another good book to add to the catalog. So that's that's pretty exciting.
00:02:34
Speaker
um I wanted to start with maybe talking about your background a little bit because you start the book with like a story at the very beginning of your career and then you go into National Geographic. So um I thought we could talk a little bit about your background and then we can talk about the book a little bit.
00:02:49
Speaker
Okay, sounds good. So ah yeah, you say the very beginning of my career, the book actually begins when I'm four or five years old, but I won't go into all that detail.
00:03:00
Speaker
But anyway, let's fast forward until I'm about 30 so, 28 or 30. That's probably good, yeah. <unk> that's friday good yeah I moved from the countryside of Connecticut to Washington, D.C., carrying an illustration portfolio and started to peddle my wares, having no idea whether it's going to work or not, just having a hunch that I might be kind of marketable and had a good bit of success working for New Republic and Washington Post and then Washington Star, et cetera.
00:03:28
Speaker
And I did a major kind of infographic piece for The Washington Post Sunday Magazine, which recently, by the way, went defunct. Yeah. um And that ah that got my foot in the door at National Geographic. It caught the eye of its then art director, Howard Payne. And I i came on as assistant art director in the magazine art department.
00:03:48
Speaker
And then later on, in the succeeding years, and I was at National Geographic for 27 years, I had separate stints back and forth between the map division and the magazine, first of which was to design and art direct a US historical atlas, which so it was like boot camp and cartography for me. So I kind of learned on the job.
00:04:09
Speaker
And again, back and forth with ultimately became the art director of the magazine. But when the opportunity came up to go back to the map division as chief cartographer, I jumped at the chance. And so, yeah, the last dozen or so years, I was the chief cartographer there.
00:04:26
Speaker
Can you tell me a little bit about how the practice changed over your 27 years? I imagine when you first started, it was a lot more analog than it was when you when you left.
00:04:37
Speaker
Right. Yeah. the The transition had started. So there was off in the corner of the MAP division. were more than 100 people working the MAP division. There was an air-conditioned, climate-controlled room with this hulking computer in it called a Cytex. There were two workstations there, and that it did kind of pre-press work. But the rest of the work was done the old-fashioned way. So...
00:04:59
Speaker
the the The division looked really cool because, of course, there would be these big flat files and big light tables and crash people hunched over the light tables, hand correcting things and stuff. So ah it was at the beginning of a profound change, much of which I didn't have anything directly to do, but it was a sort of happy witness to a lot of it.
00:05:21
Speaker
Right. But that, that hand craftness at natural geographic still happens today. Right. Yes, it does. and It's just the the tools have changed.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah. To me, it's a remarkable thing that actually, if and unless you knew about the timing of this huge transition from analog to digital, you you wouldn't really be able to tell from the from the maps themselves. Right.
00:05:49
Speaker
ah Yeah, but the of course, the productivity of the group and increased enormously with these new tools. Following, of course, a quite steep and very long learning curve. But right yeah it's yeah, the map division changed as the world changed.
00:06:05
Speaker
Right. And then you moved over to Esri to work on on maps and story maps?
Transition to Esri and the Birth of GeoStories
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, so i had ah in my position as the chief cartographer, I was the person to kind of be the liaison between National Geographic and Esri as we were trying to to bring the two organizations closer. um And also in my latter days, I'd done some experimenting with what we call GeoStories, which would turned out to be a kind of progenitor of story maps we did at Esri. So combining two brand assets of the society, beautiful images, beautiful maps,
00:06:39
Speaker
on the web to tell stories, especially things like travel, travel logs, walking tours, et cetera. And we were pretty proud of it, but it was not a time when the society was very receptive to these sorts of ideas. Maybe we were a little ahead of time or something. So I realized i could probably do better ah at Esri where I had more kind of natural kindred spirits.
00:07:03
Speaker
Right. Right. So now we have this new book, uh, telling stories with maps. Um, I guess I'll just ask like the question I kind of asked to all authors, which is, you know, why did you write it and who is it for and what do you hope readers can, can learn from it or do with it?
00:07:21
Speaker
Right. Well, um, another confession, which is that, that, um, i yeah I had not given any thought to writing a book, but an acquisitions editor at Esri Press sent me a note out of the blue saying, we're thinking about doing a book on telling stories with maps.
00:07:39
Speaker
And I immediately jumped, ah instantly jumped at the chance and thought, this this is great. It's an opportunity I never thought I would have to tell at least part of our broad audience um what the ah value and importance and fun really of ah map-based storytelling was all about. And obviously take advantage of my decades of experience at NatGeo and Esri.
00:08:04
Speaker
turned into very early on was conceived as a kind of combination of sort of memoir type thing, using my career as a sort of metaphor for the changes that the world has gone through and cartography and data visualization have gone through.
00:08:19
Speaker
e It's interesting because the book is sort of rooted in Esri's story maps, but it it goes pretty far beyond that. So how did you sort of think about how do I balance you know, the tool versus the concept.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, it was an ongoing process. Um, I can't say that it was, uh, all that, all that difficult. It just kind of felt natural to me. I, I saw, I felt from the start that we didn't want this to be uh,
00:08:51
Speaker
ah you know, a technical manual or step-by-step instructions, although the last chapter goes into that to some extent, ah but that I wanted to focus not solely, but maybe even primarily on storytelling rather than touting ArcGIS story maps, which I do love to tout because we think, I think it's the best solution for map-based storytelling on the web.
00:09:15
Speaker
So, okay. So tell me a little bit about your approach or concept or philosophy when it comes to
Defining Storytelling and Map Choreography
00:09:24
Speaker
storytelling. Like the first chapter of the book really goes into sort of like the sort of traditional definition of what story is. But I wrestle with this a lot because people will like make a graph of a line, you know, make a line chart and say, oh, I'm telling this story. And it's like, yeah, your line's going up. I don't know if that's a story. So can you talk a little bit about how you
00:09:46
Speaker
think about storytelling and data and obviously within within the mapping world? Yeah, sure. um i yeah i actually... have a pretty liberal definition of story what a story is because we want to serve a lot of people with with who who might come to this with with different goals and objectives um so i don't mind calling a uh you know a beautiful map with some accompanying text and a picture or two a story even if it doesn't have the the classic plot elements of a say a you know a novel type type narrative that said
00:10:23
Speaker
ah we We think a lot about the beginning, middle and end of our stories. So starting with a bang, coming up with evocative titles and beautiful images that draw people into a story.
00:10:35
Speaker
Then the main part of the story, mixing maps and multimedia. and I'd love to talk a little in a little bit about map choreography and then having a conclusion that's all about taking action of some sort, even if it's just reading more or clicking a donate button or you name it. we want to We want the story itself to inspire people to do something and to to take action.
00:11:00
Speaker
um Another thing about storytelling is that it's a buzzword these days and there are lots of books about storytelling. So I didn't do a lot of dwelling on it. ah It was more more the value of maps in enriching and adding context to stories.
00:11:17
Speaker
and And how do you, so story maps is sort of like the digital interactive thing. ah platform where you can scroll or like you said, you can click a button, you can do a thing.
00:11:30
Speaker
But you you, like you said, you started your career at National Geographic where, you know, was for a long time just the printed magazine. So how do you think about storytelling in like a static page or today it would be like an infographic or a single dashboard?
00:11:47
Speaker
Right. Yes. i Storytelling in that static analog realm was in a lot of ways a lot more challenging. Yeah. You had, of course, the luxury of a big sheet, especially for the supplement maps and atlases that we worked on. So you could put a lot of information into a single map.
00:12:04
Speaker
But the narrative element of a single printed map is a sort of subtle interplay between ah it sort of between these different Types of information. So you want to build a kind of subtle visual hierarchy into a map. So the biggest cities obviously have the largest, the largest labels um and different types of features are depicted in in different colors, things like that.
00:12:31
Speaker
And of course, we did combine maps with text in static forms, especially on what we call the art side of a supplement. So one side might be a big map. The other side would be a series of maps with accompanying text and visuals, which more closely resembles what story maps have become.
00:12:48
Speaker
And do you, in in especially in that format, do you expect people to read the spread in a linear way? Or do you sort of say, well, we can kind of direct people's attention using highlights or color or you know or big words or whatever it is, but do you expect people to sort of work their way through it in a linear way? or Or you just sort of hope that you can direct them in the direct in in the way that you want them to go through it?
00:13:18
Speaker
and In the analog realm, yes, we, we we you know, with with we can only do so much to steer people into a particular sequence. So it's a it's a much more subtle thing in the digital realm. Of course, you know, we've given up for the most part the large formats.
00:13:35
Speaker
ah for much smaller screens and a lot much less detail, but we have the huge advantage of time so we can unfold a narrative as viewers scroll and interact.
00:13:46
Speaker
And so that's, yeah, that that opens up all sorts of worlds of storytelling potential. And in the digital world, I'm curious about vertical versus horizontal.
00:13:58
Speaker
um It seems like it's a more natural motion for us to swipe ah to scroll horizontally, but then to swipe, I'm sorry, to scroll vertically, but to swipe horizontally.
00:14:10
Speaker
And do you, or does story maps, I mean, I'm not, I'm not super familiar with, with making story maps. I'll put it that way. But like, how do you think about the two directions and like when they should be,
00:14:21
Speaker
paired together or when they should not. Or, you know, the the it's just two kind of very different motions that people are familiar with. Yeah. And I think most of us have been kind of trained by myriad websites to that the scroll is the main thing. Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
You know, a cover is is like at the top of a stack of items that you scroll through vertically um horizontally, I think, is a less natural ah action, but a swipe feature is obviously kind of horizontally driven.
00:14:54
Speaker
um StoryMaps also has a kind of sister um, uh, product or feature, uh, that is, that is slide driven, that is specifically intended for, for making presentations. So that's called briefing, but I find it to be, uh, less, less immersive, less, uh, involving maybe because it reminds me of the, you know, uh, the many boring presentations we've all had to sit through.
00:15:24
Speaker
yeah But also the scroll allows you to kind of seamlessly move um among elements in a way that just doesn't quite, for some reasons I can't fully define, ah doesn't quite work as well, I think.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah, in the horizontal in the horizontal way Yeah, yeah. i didn't No, I think that's right. I think... It's just interesting how we have sort of become accustomed to one direction over another. and And now when I find something, especially in the rare piece where it combines a vertical and a horizontal, it's so astounding.
00:15:59
Speaker
A little disconcerting? or or Yeah. Or surprising. or surprising And so if it's done well, surprising in a good way, where it feels like, okay, this makes sense. I'm going horizontally.
00:16:12
Speaker
Right. um It's going through a story and it's going to branch off into, you know, here's this, you know, this, we want to add, you know, more detail about this one city. So we're going to go horizontally and now we're going going to turn back to,
00:16:25
Speaker
you know, the zoom out and bring you to another city. One of our GIS story maps, so-called immersive capabilities is ah is slideshow that does that. So that that is an option.
00:16:38
Speaker
ah One thing that the New York Times and some some of the other major journalism organizations have have done that I find really intriguing is scroll driven navigation across a landscape or a piece piece of art. So as you scroll, you're you're following a route and that's something relatively experimenting with. of course, our trick is that we want to create builder experiences that are intuitive and simple and don't require a special programming.
Esri's Mission and Multimedia Storytelling
00:17:05
Speaker
And those you know organizations like the Times have specialists who can custom program these sorts of features and capabilities. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the reasons why people are using the Esri products, right?
00:17:18
Speaker
Is because... they don't have that team or those skills or what have you. So they want that feature that they can just build right off the shelf. Exactly. Yeah. In the case of story maps, we are in a sentence. Our goal is to democratize multimedia place-based storytelling.
00:17:36
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. So you mentioned this phrase map choreography earlier, and I'm curious how ah about that about that phrase and how you think about it yeah in your work.
00:17:47
Speaker
Well, it's a great way to to really intimately and seamlessly incorporate maps into a narrative. so what we often do is we'll on esri's online resource arcgis online will create a so-called web map that has multiple layers and we'll turn those layers off and then we'll within the story builder we'll access that web map and then we can selectively turn those layers back on ah so that as and and do other things. So as, say, a reader scrolls through a story and encounters a map, maybe as that person continues to scroll, the map will zoom in to a location and then it might in the next scrolling action, it might expose a different thematic layer or something. And so um so again, it it it kind of parses the map into a series of views and experiences that that just make it
00:18:40
Speaker
a perfectly seamless part of a narrative. Do you worry when building a tool like StoryMaps that people who don't know enough about maps are given this kind of like big power?
00:18:56
Speaker
and And I ask because there's always a sort of undercurrent of there should be a tool out there that does everything, right? That you can do your statistics, you can do your data visualization, can do great design, and it gives power to every anybody to do anything. And and i I worry about that a little bit because, you know, I'm not sure I want people who don't know enough about data to have that much power. Same thing, I don't know if I want to have people who don't know anything about color theory or design to be able just do that.
00:19:25
Speaker
do you Do you worry that there's ah people don't fully sort of understand the intricacies of of map design? um I worry a lot, frankly, a lot less about it now than i used to. Okay.
00:19:40
Speaker
Essentially based on the stories I'm seeing. Of course, there are some crudely produced stories. There are some color choices that are regrettable. ah but ah But i I actually kind of actively avoided giving people too many choices, thinking we're going to see some really ugly stories.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, some really bad maps. And we do now and then. But for the most part, I've been incredibly pleasantly surprised by the by the good judgment of our community of storytellers. So I'd rather think I'd rather risk some um embarrassing errors and poor visualizations in favor of giving people maximum choice to do really cool things.
00:20:24
Speaker
Do you think that is because data has become and data visualization has become such a crucial part of of communicating? Or do you think that's mostly just because of the decisions that you and your team have made in in producing the tool?
00:20:41
Speaker
I'm not sure i know the answer to that question. i think it's probably it's probably a combination, but yeah certainly people are more a lot more savvy in terms of visualizing data. Not not everybody by any means, but the kind of audiences we're reaching.
00:20:56
Speaker
um And of course, we ah thanks to our sister ah dev team that continues to enhance the product. We've added at least simple capabilities for charting, for instance. So we've, you know, we kind of inched toward that you can do everything kind of a paradigm, but of course we'll never, we'll never claim that or try really to create a truly comprehensive set of tools.
00:21:22
Speaker
Right. Is there one big, uh, or not big, but one mistake or one misjudgment, uh, that you see that you wish like all people working with data and maps particularly make that like, this would be like the warning light that you would put out for people.
00:21:43
Speaker
Uh, nothing really comes to mind, although, uh, for fun, several years ago, I did a story map called how to make forgot, I think it was how to make an awful story map. And so i I tried to compile within one experience as many poor decisions, like terrible images and maps cluttered with unnecessary information and too much text and that kind stuff.
00:22:06
Speaker
I gotcha. Yeah. um So i want to turn back to the book specifically. um So I kind of have two two questions for you. First is on the the construction of the book. The book is lovely to hold.
00:22:19
Speaker
um It's just laid out beautifully. And I'm curious about the production of it. Now, so you have this background of National Geographic. So I suspect you did a lot of the layout on your own. But but what was the production like of actually pull putting it all together?
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, uh, fortunately, as repressed gave me quite a bit of freedom. So first, first choice was to determine a format. And I'd looked at a bunch of books and liked the, liked the size and proportions of the, the one that we, we ended up with. Uh, and then I, ah because I do have a design background and do.
00:22:51
Speaker
do know some desktop graphics software. i I actually laid out the book as I wrote it because i I just I wanted the visuals to be really married to the text without sending people several pages forward and and
Designing the Book with Esri Press
00:23:07
Speaker
back. you know, essentially turned the book over to as repress and their designer and took my initial layout and made it much better. So she yeah she increased the size of some of the graphics. She refined typography. She added some a few simple infographics herself.
00:23:23
Speaker
So it was a that that was great because I was by this time I was just too close to it and not really making objective decisions. And it was great to bring her sensibility into the process.
00:23:35
Speaker
So were you writing directly in and like, and I assume it's an InDesign. Were you writing directly in InDesign? Yeah, I'm not sure it's a best practice I'd recommend to everybody.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah. For the most part, yes, I did. However, at least three of the chapters are based on things I'd written previously, maybe four or five.
00:23:58
Speaker
um So in that case, I'd start with ah with ah you know an an earlier um blog post blog post, or ah you know if i had a a word version of it. And then I would essentially pour it into the layout sequentially as I worked it into the new format. And of course, change the message significantly along the way as well.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah. Now I haven't obviously counted the number of images in here. There's probably, i don't know, 300 plus or something like that. I mean, the, the book itself is, ah let's see, like 210 pages plus, plus the end, the stuff at the end. So it's like three, 400 images in here.
00:24:36
Speaker
but you have those in mind when you started writing? um To some extent, or to some extent, I was just off opportunistic. So um i you know I realized i had lurking in the depths of my hard drive ah an image of a printed map back from my Nat Geo days that would work nicely. There might have been other examples that I didn't have direct access to that could have been better.
00:25:04
Speaker
Example. So I was yeah a bit of an opportunist, but otherwise often, you know, I just go in search of things. Fortunately, and you know, National Geographic to subscribers archives all of its images, all of its issues online. So I could go back to my ancient history period when I was actually involved in the magazine and find some good examples.
00:25:27
Speaker
Now, do you have a favorite map either of your own or someone else's that's either in the book or just like your, just your favorite map data driven map, I should say.
00:25:38
Speaker
course I'm, I'm a bird watcher. It's like asking me for my favorite bird. I love them all. i mean, they're just so, they're just so cool and wonderful. One that I I've come back to many, many times, uh, in story map form is, uh,
00:25:52
Speaker
Well, a series actually, a story is done by a small nonprofit called the Amazon Conservation Team. And they've got a very talented fellow there who's a beautiful storyteller that has created really, really gorgeous ah stories combining, as you know the the best of them do, combining maps and images and text in in a really effective and immersive way.
00:26:16
Speaker
And also, of course, describing topics that matter. i I have a passion through that love of birds for conservation. And so i' ah my favorites tend to come from that realm. And there are lots of beautiful ones created by ah Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund and many others.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah. So last thing before we finish up, the book, I think, does a really nice job of sort of taking people through the kind of arc or the process of building a a story map. I mean, ah I'll say a story map, but it doesn't necessarily have to be an Esri product. It can just be a a story around maps.
00:26:56
Speaker
Is there like one crucial recommendation you would give to folks who are trying to communicate their data through maps that they should keep in the back of their mind as they're working?
00:27:09
Speaker
oh There's I'm not sure I can conjure up one example, but but ah one of the things I I try to to teach people or to to to remind them of is that is the maps are can be beautiful. They're very dense with information. They tend to be kind of dispassionate. And so most people aren't moved to tears over maps unless maybe it's a really bad map.
00:27:36
Speaker
But that that maps in combination of with multimedia, especially beautiful photos and videos, tickle both sides of your brain, the the sort of emotional and visceral and analytic and the and the more, I'm sorry, emotional and visceral and the more kind of rational analytic side.
00:27:56
Speaker
And that getting that balance right can can really make a story sing and ah lots of ways. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Alan, where can folks, so they can obviously get the book anywhere i found out on the Esri site.
00:28:10
Speaker
Actually, I saw it in the Esri magazine. that's where That's where I found it first. um So they can find anywhere, but where can they find you and your team to either get more help with maps or to get started with story maps?
00:28:22
Speaker
ah You can find us just via the esri.com website. And in terms of finding the book, you can find that almost anywhere. Just search on telling stories with maps book.
00:28:34
Speaker
ah don't Don't search storytelling with maps. It's telling stories with maps. You'll find it on on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, etc. Terrific. um Terrific. Well, Alan, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks so much for writing the book. I really enjoyed it. It's a pleasure to read, pleasure to hold and look at. And yeah, thanks again for coming on the show.
00:28:55
Speaker
Thank you. Enjoyed it. We'll see you.
00:28:59
Speaker
Thanks everyone for tuning into the show. Hope you enjoyed that. Hope you will check out Alan's new book, Telling Stories with Maps. And if you have thoughts on our conversation about storytelling, if you have thoughts on mapping tools, BM, Esri or other tools that you use, please let me know.
00:29:15
Speaker
i'm always curious to hear what tools people are using when it comes to ah building and creating maps. And of course, no episode will be complete without me asking you to please rate or review the show wherever you get your podcast, be it Spotify, iTunes, or just on the website at policyviz.com or on Zencastr. Wherever you get the show, I'd really appreciate the rating.
00:29:36
Speaker
The review helps other people become aware of the show. So that's all I've got for this week. Until next time, this has been the PolicyViz Podcast. Thanks so much for listening.