One of the most rewarding aspects of offering custom framing and printing is the insight we’ve gained into the evolving world of modern artists. One of our favorite modern designers is longtime Trade partner Scott Reinhard, whose cartographic prints are as distinctive as his career. From his beginnings as a graphic designer to producing numerous visualizations for The New York Times, including those for the COVID-19 pandemic, Scott’s work reimagines familiar landscapes with a creative edge. Collections like State Elevations blend 3-dimensional renderings into traditional cartographic records. His latest series, State Portraits, might be our favorite yet. The series is minimal in its design while incorporating complex visuals of each state’s defining natural and human features—trees, farms, water, and people. When State Portraits was released, we reached out to Scott to discuss his artistic process, professional journey, and advice for those in design and art.
Trees in New York art print by Scott Reinhard Maps from the State: Portraits collection. Framed in Gallery Light Walnut.
How did the idea for Scott Reinhard Maps come to life? Can you share the journey from its inception to becoming what it is today?
I’ve worked as a graphic designer since the mid-2000s. During my time in graduate school at NC State, I took a class in Geographic Information Systems, the technical aspects of modern cartography. In the following years, I experimented on my own with these new skills. In 2018, I developed a technique that combines high-resolution elevation data, rendered in a hyper-realistic 3D style with historic paper maps. The result felt totally new, greater than the sum of its parts. These new works found some virality, and my wife and I formed Scott Reinhard Maps as a place where this and other cartographic work could live. This all eventually led me to start working with the New York Times as a Graphics Editor starting in 2019 and for the next few years I balanced this endeavor with an intense, very public job as a visual journalist. I left the Times this past fall and now am devoting my full energy to the company, which will look like custom commissions and selling my maps.
Exhibition catalogue for Helen Molesworth's show This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, designed by Scott Reinhard and James Goggin. Photo: James Goggin
How has your background in museums, graphic design, and editorial work influenced your approach to documenting and designing maps? How have your techniques evolved?
I’ve had a winding career so far—my goal has always been to surround myself with people that I can learn from. This has led me to work with many wonderful artists, designers, curators, editors, cartographers, and journalists. While there may appear to be a new iteration of my practice every few years, everything is cumulative. So the deep influence I took from designing books with James Goggin, watching Helen Molesworth assemble an exhibition catalogue, having my work critiqued while a designer at 2x4, or reporting on and mapping the invasion of Ukraine for the New York Times is all now part of me and my process. My technique evolves by continual exploration into how things are made, how they look, what they’re made of, or why they need to be that way. I’m just curious and have fallen down yet another rabbit hole. At a certain point all of those rabbit holes become something new to me.
Where New Yorkers Moved to Escape Coronavirus visual graphic by Scott Reinhard for the New York Times
What is the most complex graphic you’ve ever visualized, and why?
I could answer this in a number of ways. I was part of the publishing team for the New York Times’ Covid Tracker, starting in March 2020. During the time I worked on the tracker team, I saw the project grow from a simple spreadsheet to a piece of essential digital infrastructure that could handle millions of data points. My work visualizing the thousands of Starlink satellites orbiting the Earth, or simulating fog rolling in through the Golden Gate into the San Francisco Bay involved a fine balance between sophisticated technical approaches and high design. Such complex efforts like the Starlink and fog projects involve directing teams of skilled people to carry out your vision—something that is clear, understandable, beautiful, and seamless. The technology should be a means to the end, not the thing itself, and aesthetics aren’t frivolous or a layer added at the end, they are completely integral to one’s understanding of the work itself.
People in Ohio showcases one of the data points from Scott Reinhard's newest collection, State Portraits.
Your new series, State Portraits, merges art, geography, and the human population. What inspired this series and how did the process of developing the series differ from your previous collections?
This series, State Portraits, shows states through a defining characteristic of the place using highly detailed land classification data. Trees in New York shows everywhere in New York state with significant areas of trees. By just showing this one aspect of the state, patterns begin to emerge. I’ve also made farms, people, and water visualizations in this series as well, and am looking to expand the series in the future to more places.
From an aesthetic standpoint, I’d been wanting to create work more in line with my own design sensibilities, something with a little poetry to them. The historic elevation series felt like me from a process standpoint. It was a result of the endless tinkering, combining of technologies and approaches and arriving at something that felt new, compelling, and exciting. My work at the New York Times had elements of me as well. But what I like about the State Portrait Series is they provide an opportunity to bring my knowledge of typography, color, layout, form, words, to a highly technical and scientific dataset. These works live in a space that is map, poster, and art. They are both deeply complex and very simple. Not every dataset works with every state, but when a pattern emerges visually, I find it quite special.
Are there any new projects or collaborations in the works for 2025?
I’ve spent a few years developing a technique that captures that magic of the historic elevations. I wanted to have the flexibility to show any location, unencumbered by the boundaries of the historic maps. I’ve arrived at a place that comes totally from me. I’m super excited to start rolling out this beautiful body of work in 2025. It feels expansive and the possibilities endless. I’m also preparing for an exhibition of my mapping work at a local library in Falls Village, Connecticut—the first solo exhibition of my work.
California by Scott Reinhard from his State Elevations series.
If you could collaborate with anyone—whether in design, cartography, or beyond—who would it be, and why?
Too many people to name. My favorite projects allow me to work with people to do things I couldn’t do on my own. For example, a 50-foot tall geographic visualization that I created with Span Studio for the architect Jeanne Gang’s work at Beloit College comes to mind. Projects where the ideas are so big and ambitious that I don’t know exactly how I’m going to get there in the end, but I do. That’s the spot where new ideas emerge. I’m looking forward to connecting with that type of collaborator moving forward.
Mt. St. Helens by Scott Reinhard combines a digitally-rendered 3-dimensional elevation with the 1983 United States Geological Survey topographic of the peaks
As someone at the forefront of cartography and design, what advice would you give to aspiring cartographers or creatives looking to merge art with technical fields?
Make weird things.
Push your tools beyond what they’re made for.
There are no rules! You don’t have to show anyone anything. What will you do with that freedom to make only for yourself?
Combine all of your skills.
Nothing needs to be the way it is.
Look inward and notice what excites you. Follow that, make new things, and again notice what excites you. Follow that on and on. That should last you for the rest of your life.
Strasbourg, Virginia art print by Scott Reinhard Maps
People often see art and science as separate disciplines. How does your work argue for the interconnectedness of these fields?
We generally think of art and science in their final form. But to me they are both exploratory processes. They require creativity and openness to engage with. The difference is that science by its nature requires demarcation to the stuff it works with. Everything is a spectrum between here and there, there aren’t actually distinctions. But in science we need to agree upon units of measurements so that we can observe, discuss, describe, and recreate phenomena. Art, while a similarly exploratory process, doesn’t really have those distinctions in those ways. It’s coming out of the artist uninterrupted. That is beautiful and human. To combine the two requires a respect and understanding of how both work. When art and science are working in tandem it’s putting the human experience into its wider context, or putting the wider context in a more human scale. And when truly successful, those distinctions fade away completely.
A close-up of Trees in New York art print framed in Gallery Light Walnut by Simply Framed
Why did you decide to offer custom framing for your work? What went into the process of selecting the right frames and partnering with Simply Framed?
The act of framing, just like the act of publishing, is a way of saying this is important, and because of that I’m going to present and protect this work so that people beyond this point in time can also engage with it. That felt important to provide to people that want to have my work in their lives and Simply Framed makes that available in a way that is easy, accessible and beautiful.
You can follow Scott Reinhard Maps’ updates on Instagram @scottmreinhard and check out his full collection of prints including the State Portraits collection at scottreinhardmaps.com.
