Passion Project Portfolio

Some of my most creative cartography work in the past decade has been for passion projects. Making these pieces helped me set the stage for what Keirtography has become today, and keep my creativity sharp for more conventional paid client work.

I love helping authors and game designers bring their imaginations to life with cartographic worldbuilding. The mutual inspiration loop that creates is infectious and wonderful. I’ve been smitten with fantasy maps since childhood, whether hand-drawn from classic sword and sorcery and historical fiction novels or equally-classic 8-bit home video game digital overworlds. Taking the next step to create my own (with a unique process) and help others do the same has been some of the most fulfilling creative work I’ve ever done.

My recent worldbuilding work was put in motion by earlier explorations of visual map art inspired by both real-world cartography and digitally-distorted programming effects, creating found-texture pieces, mixed-media pieces, even hand-drawn doodles—all enhanced by smartphone or laptop design tools used in ways they weren’t intended to be used. Several of these inter-related passion projects are included below.

They’re not maps, but the album covers I designed from 1997 to the present (and the music I made for those albums, both solo and as part of three bands) were just as essential to my creative development and well being as any of the map work on this site. That’s only slightly less true for the one-off podcast I made about my longtime music hobby and the design I created for my one and only self-published novel.