Joe LeMonnier's portfolio of lovely maps

This map is the frontispiece for the first book, The Relic of Perilous Falls, in the Will Wilder series of YA adventure books published by Random House.

The world map is the frontispiece for Geoffrey Kent's memoir Safari, published by HarperCollins. The globe was made for an exhibit in the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona.

Time For Kids asked me to make an illustrated map including many of Australia's diverse native animals. This same map was later reworked and used on a jigsaw puzzle produced by Geotoys.

Scholastic used this somewhere in a movie and as an interactive whiteboard illustration.

The town of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts contacted me directly to make a tour map for the local merchants. I know what you're thinking, but it's the neighboring town of Stockbridge with Alice's Restaurant.

Dr. Dale Bredesen wanted to illustrate the two conflicting states of Alzheimer's immune responses and suggested an analogy with the two states of Korea. This appears as one of a dozen illustrations I made for best seller The End of Alzheimer's published by Crown.

Perri deFino needed a map with a look and feel of the 18th century to illustrate a book for the Da Capo Press.

Time For Kids allowed me free rein to explain how the Panama Canal works. I posted it on YouTube and so far it has almost 5 million views!

Souvenir shops all over New Mexico sell these jigsaw puzzles made by Geotoys. They are also sold somewhere, I'm told, on the National Mall. We've done a few dozen other cities, states, and countries together.

The Butler Conservation Fund is spending massive amounts of Gilbert Butler's and others' wealth to develop accessible wilderness parks all over the world. This map shows one of the closer-to-home projects, Minnewaska State Park Preserve in New York.

Knopf commissioned this as the frontispiece for their best seller Sea Wife by Amity Gaige.

MSP Communications commissioned this map for Northwest Airlines. They've used it a few times in their in-flight magazines.

The stellar and inspirational Claudia Alexander asked me to draw maps and diagrams for her unique children's science series, Windows to Adventure. We made over a hundred maps and illustrations together. In her book, the mountains themselves talk and argue amongst themselves!

Dunn Books rejected this for the novel, Fractus Europa. Instead, I drew small maps for the 13 chapter openers, each set in a dystopian very near future. No zombies or nuclear war here; that would be too easy.

Every year The Northern Virginia Technology Council commissions a different map maker to create a poster for their annual convention. 2014 was my year.

This map was printed directly on a wall in the Newark Museum of Art to introduce an exhibit of 19th century mountain paintings. They wanted something simple to orient the show. I wanted to keep it light and low-key for the soft museum lighting.

I also produce science illustrations. Though mostly for textbooks, this one was for National Geographic Kids magazine.

Highlights for Children wanted a fun locator map for a feature on West African music. Fun fact: The son of the original owners now runs the show and claims to be the inspiration for the memorable Highlights character Goofus.

Ross Island in Antarctica contains 4 volcanos, one of which, Mount Erebus, is active. McMurdo station is there with a staff of over 1200 people. Time for Kids published a feature about living there.

Time for Kids commissioned a full suite of 50 maps for a children's atlas. The project took 6 months with many discussions on style and content before we arrived at the finished maps. I've made several revisions over the years as the world itself changes.

Time for Kids hired me once a year to make a series of maps for their "Around the World" feature. The Ecuador map displayed the unique native animals while maps of other nations showed landforms, industry, national parks, history, and landmarks. The animals were always everyone's favorite.

Scholastic commissioned this one. Borrowing heavily from National Geographic style, I simplified it down while emphasizing the icy remoteness of the terrain.

Pearson wanted a cutaway of the elevator used in the Woolworth Building, The Cathedral of Commerce. In 1913 it was the tallest building in the world. I made two versions.

I've done maps for cookbooks before. The clever editors at Workman Publishing wanted something that didn't look like the obvious "hand-drawn crude map with pictures of food scattered on it." I gave them this.

Planetary scientist and author Claudia Alexander gave me wide latitude to render Olympus Mons for her children's book on mountains. This mountain is on Mars and is formed the same way as mountains are on Earth. Bigger and taller than any earthbound mount, it won't shut up about it.

The Newark Museum of Art was opening a show of Japanese ceramics and for the catalog commissioned a map. Simple and elegant, this is what we came up with together.

The Wall Street Journal asked for a very simple locator.

One of a few chapter openers in a travel memoir, On the Ganges, published by Knopf. George Black roamed, rode, and wrote all 1500 miles of the mythic river.

Red Chair Press did a book about zoos and animal parks. Did you know that Wen Wang collected a private zoo he called The Garden of Intelligence over 3000 years ago?

The frontispiece of a spy-thriller that posits a near future where all nuclear weapons have been decommissioned. But with threats of nuclear warfare gone, the where and how of their disposal creates economic and cultural warfare. See Desert Burial by Dunn Books.

As exotic as Timbuktu, more real than Xanadu. Drawn for a travel magazine to show Zanzibar lies somewhere between the two realms.

I think I've reused this a few times. This particular map was reformated for Red Chair Press.

Another map done with the wonderful Claudia Alexander for her Windows to Adventure series.

A simple map for The Wall Street Journal.

Penguin needed a map for a book on Malcolm X. I tried to reflect the feel of the time using the colors of old subway maps.

Catholic publishers (use both capital and lowercase C here) Sadlier used this map for a children's book about the Exodus.

Christian publisher Tyndale Press commissioned a suite of 6 maps for a series of YA fantasy novels. I read the books and made the geography conform to the stories.

An autumn issue of Time for Kids contained this map. I animated it for use on classroom interactive whiteboards, which were just then coming into use. Fun fact: The Indians present at that first Thanksgiving spoke fluent English.

Grolier, before they were acquired by Scholastic, asked for an illustrated map with a bit of a period feel. It looked so nice they forgot what period they were aiming for.

I've made quite a few maps of Ukraine. This one was for the Winter Olympic games held in Sochi. It appeared in a winter issue of Time for Kids.

The solar wind is here visualized as a wind with a hot slipstream. We easily imagine motion but it's difficult to grasp a wind at the speed of light. Claudia Alexander commissioned this — and she approved it — so it must be right.

Of food the French are the first to tout
And there seems to be but little doubt
By example this shows
samples of what everyone knows
Just what all the damn fuss is about

Sagitarius, the archer, was one of a few familiar constellations accompanying Claudia Alexander's Windows to Adventure. You gotta see these books, there's a talking window that flies!

Muted tones were requested by the editors of The Weekly Reader for this map.

A recent novel of historical fiction by Maggie Shipstead has a woman piloting a DC-3 in a great circle around the world. The title is, of course, Great Circle and is published by Knopf.

Forbes Magazine had a feature on adventure travel. Quite a lot of info needed to be displayed in as "fun" a way as possible. I figured Forbes' readers would relate to a Monoply board.

If you went to school in the USA, you saw a map like this. I've made quite a few, so perhaps you've seen this one or one of its cousins.

Wally Broecker proposed The Great Ocean Conveyor in the late 70s as a primary engine of climate change. He coined and popularized the term "global warming". Natural History Magazine published the first major article about it using my map. All subsequent depictions of the phenomenon use the same ribbon depiction.

I've produced a long streak of maps of US public lands to illustrate Bob Mohlenbrock's This Land articles in Natural History Magazine. He once described these areas as "Earth's Erogenous Zones".

Two approaches illustrating the size of the largest Sauropods. Red Chair Books used both.

This is one of the maps for Anubis, a spy-thriller set in a modern, morally ambiguous, but familiar world. It's published by Dunn Books.

The Wall Street Journal used this as a spot in their color weekend section.

This appeared atop an article on China in The Weekly Reader.

Random House used this for Like Water on Stone, a YA book with a definitely adult subject: The Armenian Genocide.

Sadlier handed me a simple diagram of a small chapel and I modeled and rendered it.

A simple map of some sights in Washington, DC to orient and familiarize tourists flying Northwest and Delta Airlines.

A private client asked me to make a map for his father. It's their personal fishing cabin and you'll notice there's no indication of where it is.

Though this came through an art studio, I worked directly with the client, a wellness center.

One of several illustrations for Black Gold published by Knopf.