Cartography

Biography

A self-confessed ‘cartonerd’ with a personal and professional passion for mapping. Ken gained his BSc in Cartography at Oxford Polytechnic and PhD in GIS at Leicester University and fell into academia. He spent 20 years in key positions in UK universities before ditching the bureaucracy and admin for the no-brainer move to sunny California to join Esri in 2011. He has presented and published an awful lot. He blogs (cartonerd.com), tweets (@kennethfield), is past Editor of The Cartographic Journal (2005–2014), and Chair of the ICA Map Design Commission (2011–2019). He co-founded the Journal of Maps, is on the advisory board of the International Journal of Cartography, is a Fellow of both the British Cartographic Society and Royal Geographic Society, is a Chartered Geographer (GIS), and only the second Honorary Member of the New Zealand Cartographic Society.

Ken is in love with maps, makes maps, collects maps, writes about maps, has a tattoo of his favourite map and is devoted to encouraging others to see the value in quality cartography and helping them make better maps. He attempts to push the boundaries of cartography, and he has received numerous awards for his maps, writing and pedagogy (though he’s most proud of an award for a kitchen tile design!). He’s in demand as a panellist and keynote speaker and has curated and judged numerous map galleries. He is author of the book CARTOGRAPHY (esriurl.com/14091) which provides a compendium of design advice for mapmakers. He is also guilty of having the idea to develop a MOOC on Cartography (www.esri.com/mooc) and roping in his talented colleagues to help bring it to fruition. Despite evidence to the contrary, life’s not all about maps, and Ken can also be found on a snowboard, behind a drum kit, building Lego, walking @wisley_dog, being in awe of his far more talented better half @lindabeale, or supporting his hometown football team, Nottingham Forest.

You can view his maps at carto.maps.arcgis.com.