They lied about Greenland
World Map with Mercado version overlaid real size
I never watched the West Wing nor had a real geography class, so seeing this Mercator Projection on Twitter hit me.
After realizing I’d literally been seeing the world all wrong my whole life...
Noting how this design supported Western supremacy…
It made me think of messaging hierarchy and design.
Just that morning I’d consulted with a company that admitted they had no idea what really mattered in their story nor how to bring it out.
The bland, non-differentiated messages were like Greenland and Russia. Taking up too much space and crowding the top.
This happens a lot.
The old cartographers knew a few things:
Big things get seen first
Space is power
We take in from the top down.
Repetition then makes it true.
Big, primary and repeated = indelible.
Where and what is your Greenland? Redraw your maps.