Newsletter - Issue #1
Discover more from Newsletter - Pablo Robles
Hey, nice to see you here!
Thanks again for subscribing and welcome to my very first newsletter!
I’m writing this on a very hot afternoon, from my small apartment located in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, which has been home for 4 years now: Hong Kong.
I hope you can find inspiration, something fun that sparks your interest or maybe something you didn’t know here.
Let’s get right to it.
Mapping
New 2020 global land use data: Impact Observatory and Esri released a new series of GeoTIFF from Sentinel-2 imagery using a deep learning model in partnership with Microsoft AI. Files are divided into water, trees (clusters that are at least 10 meters high), crops, flooded vegetation-wetlands, ice areas and more! Download each tile here.
A collection of sounds of woodlands and forests from all around the world. This is lovely. Go find Costa Rica, my home country, and give it a listen!
Trick
Add sharpness to your map using Photoshop
Duplicate your main layer, then apply: High Pass filter
Select a radius no more than 2 to 5 pixels (depending on your resolution)
Then change the layer blending mode to soft light (you can play with opacity too!)
Done!
Inspiration and some design resources
Nowadays, creating a good home office/space is vital. Here are some examples of different workstations worldwide. You can also find the deets of the gadgets, equipment and more used in the pictures. I’m kind of jealous 😉
Nice Website: simple and clean design merged with beautiful illustrations
A collection of ‘brutalist websites’
A great site for color inspiration and an incredible visual bookmark service
Access Guide is a friendly introduction to digital accessibility based on WCAG 2.1
Interesting reads
Scientists now say with more confidence than ever that climate change is to blame for the increase in extreme weather events
This app shows pedestrians the shadiest walking route on hot days
A 6,600-word internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist details how the social network knew leaders of countries around the world were using their site to manipulate voters. Find the story here
Mental health memes are everywhere – can they offer more than comic relief? They provide an opportunity to laugh in the face of tragedy, at least. Read more
Visual Journalism
Here is my favorite part. I enjoy seeing other people’s work! Here’s a collection of projects that combine design, data, maps and the most important thing: a good story.
Latest projects
Tokyo Summer Olympics Medal Tracker: I worked with my teammates doing some fun pictograms for every Olympic sport, main layout, crazy cartograms and covering the whole Olympics live events. Check our medal tracker/dashboard that shows historical Olympic data, an incredible teamwork effort!
What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways: I collaborated with Rachael, my colleague from Bloomberg’s NYC office, on this project on how the legacy of a racist transportation policy continues to define urban spaces
The NACIS 41st Annual Meeting in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: I’m really excited to share that I was invited to speak at the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) 41st Annual Meeting in Oklahoma City. I will talk about cartography narratives next to some talented and real cartographers. Here is the tentative schedule
__
That’s it for now. See you next month! 👋🏻
Fun fact about me: I’m colorblind [red/green deficiencies].