Around the World in 80 Days

I’ve posted before about how I’ve been experimenting with using python to make letter mosaics – essentially replacing the pixels of a picture with varying colors of characters in a set of text to create a mosaic.  I’ve made a few beekeeping posters using the text from Langstroth’s book and a handful of other designs, but it was only a matter of time before I made a map with the technique.

Three bee posters created using the text mosaic script

I had a hard time deciding what map and text to use, I wanted the map and the text to be directly related, but also the length of the text had to be right for the poster size that I was going for – not too long and not too short.  I finally decided on a map of the route taken in Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days!

A map of the route from Around the World in Eighty Days using the full text of Jules Verne’s novel.

I also decided to use this project as an opportunity to update my python script.  Up until now my output was one large block of text (like in the bee pictures above), but I changed the script to break the text up into multiple newspaper-like columns, which makes the text significantly more readable (in case anyone cared to actually read from the poster) and look a bit more like a book.  Now I have more control over how my final output will look – how many columns, how wide they are, and how wide the gap between them should be are all easily adjusted.  Also now I have a unique poster hanging at work!

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