Maps, typography, slogans and unfortunate place names...

Via stange maps we have maps which combine two of my favorite things: typography and, well, maps-

[This map is taken from this page at vladstudio, a website for Siberian graphic designer Vlad Gerasimov’s work]

and this one, which admittedly has been all over the blogosphere, but it is so intriguing and pretty - it is a map of use states as their mottos:


[The map, The Fifty United States and their Mottos, 30x40 inches, 2008 can be found on the Two Eyeballs website, where the artist Emily Wick showcases her work. She's also done individual states.]
I am not familiar with the history here, but some of these are quite unexpected (i.e. Oregon "She flies with her own wings"; Kansas "To the Stars through Difficulties"; Washington "By and By" - what sort of motto is that?; and Michigan is so literal that it made me laugh). These are linoleum block prints!

This is a map I found via biophemera. It was published by the NY Times, it shows (allegedly, formerly innocuous) embarrassing place names in Britain, now the subject of two books, "Mr. Bailey, who grew up on Tumbledown Dick Road in Oxfordshire, and Mr. Hurst got the idea for the books when they read about a couple who bought a house on Butt Hole Road, in South Yorkshire."