We had done a few maps for Fodors in the summer of 1987.  These were done as old-style layered mechanicals (Rapidograph ink lines on Herculene, labels pasted on a registered overlay, Amberlith overlays if gray fill areas were needed for water or land).  The next time Fabrizio LaRocca called needing a few more maps for their 1988 China book we suggested using the newly released Adobe Illustrator, which we had just installed on our Mac Plus.  Fortunately Fodors was still using Helvetica and Times, which were among the limited number of PostScript fonts available in late ’87. In January 1988 we contracted to provide all new Illustrator maps for the new Gold Guides series, designed by Massimo Vignelli.  Vignelli’s design relied on Futura and Century type families which were fortuitously released by Adobe in December of ’87.  Since that time we have created thousands of maps for the Gold Guides, FlashMaps, CityGuides, and Escapes series, as well as maps used in on-demand tour guides for cruise ship vacationers.

Gold Guides

All maps on this page are copyright © Fodors Travel Publications

Escape Guides

Flashmaps

CityGuides

Compass Guides

Cruise Handout mAPS