Author needed maps which would show readers locations found in his novels. Had to be in a modern clean style, uncluttered and easily read both in colour (for print) and grayscale (for some e-books).
I chose to omit many minor roads and only label a small number of major ones. Several data sources were used as rough reference for the map (Google Maps, Open Earth Data, Ordinance GIS data, NASA satellite imagery) - care was taken so that points and lines would not match the reference material, providing a unique map that was still accurate.
I won this contest but the winning entry was in grayscale for use with a Kindle - this preview is in color, which looks better in my portfolio.