Established in 1984, Mapping Specialists, Ltd. has gained an industry-wide reputation as a leader in accuracy, quality, and service by offering a broad range of graphic services. Our location in Madison, Wisconsin, a highly regarded center of cartographic resources, enables us to draw on a well-educated, skilled workforce and extensive local research facilities.

From its beginning, MSL has always striven to be at the forefront of cartographic service and technology. Our cartographers have provided quality maps for encyclopedias, street mapping companies, educational publishers (including textbook maps and a wide array of materials for pre-school through college), travel guides, and federal, state, and local government publications. Our products are produced in a format compatible with virtually all well-known graphic design systems.

While maps can sometimes look deceptively simple to produce, all are created with exceptional attention to complex technical methods. By providing us with a small bit of information with regard to your needs, we can develop an accurate price estimate of what we expect it will take to produce your maps.

Mapping Specialists, Ltd. operates on a work-for-hire basis, which gives you the greatest amount of long-term flexibility and the best map for your money. Our maps are produced with our client's future in mind. The files can be easily updated to accommodate thematic or geographic changes. By working closely with you to achieve your desired results, MSL effectively becomes part of your team. We can take your project from initial concept, through the design process, and deliver everything you require to produce your final product.  Our project managers diligently supervise the whole process to ensure that schedules and budgets are met without costly overruns.

As our portfolio shows, Mapping Specialists' highly skilled staff creates the very finest in a wide variety of mapping products for clients throughout the United States and abroad. We achieve this by using our expert backgrounds in cartography, geographical information systems (GIS), geography, history, current events, art and design, and computer graphics. From simple maps and graphs for grade school textbooks to highly detailed maps for spatial analysis and street guides, MSL is prepared to meet all of your custom cartographic and GIS needs.

We include many checks and balances into our production process to make certain that your maps are accurate, as well as eye-catching. We offer thorough research services and our editorial department ensures accuracy.

Production Teams & Communication

When you send projects to us, you will work with the same project team each time. That way, you know what to expect each time we work together. We have found that developing a strong working relationship with one project team streamlines the process and makes everything go much more smoothly.

Also, at Mapping Specialists, staff cartographers produce 100% of our maps. We do not subcontract our cartography. By doing this, we can better maintain production consistency, overall quality, and your deadlines.

Production Methods

To match our clients' needs, we produce nearly all of our thematic cartography in the Macintosh platform. We are proficient with Adobe Illustrator^®, Adobe PhotoShop^®, Adobe InDesign^®, QuarkXPress^®, and MapPublisher^®. We also use MicroSoft Office^® for various tasks as well as other design and special effects programs. We will match whichever versions you require.

As a business partner with ESRI, our GIS department is PC-based running a full compliment of ESRI products, such as ArcGIS^® and ArcInfo^®. The GIS team can also customize software to meet your needs, and can also work with other GIS software.

Archiving

Mapping Specialists always archives all of our work. Unless you specifically request that we destroy your files, we have both an on-site and an off-site back up of everything we produce for you. These are typically backed up on CDs or DVDs. We offer this archiving free of charge. If you need to pickup existing maps for a new program, we have them. If you need a copy of files that we produced for you, just let us know. The only cost involved would be to download a large project onto multiple disks or if shipping costs are involved. Otherwise, they're your files. You have free access to them.

Part of your team

We always strive to give you the highest quality and the best service possible. Our clients compliment us on how easy we are to work with. That equates into very high client retention for us, and consistency for you.

Whether you have one map or 100 maps, our staff is well equipped to provide you with exactly what you need and when you need it. We look forward to working with you on your next mapping project and to becoming part of your production team.

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