Kappa Map Group about to go out of business?

[EdM]

It would probably serve the Kappa Map Group right for buying from Langenscheidt all their USA local map companies, some of them with good, very good or even excellent graphics, after buying Universal Crap: Trakker Crap, "Official" Arrow Map*, General Drafting, Hagstrom Map, American Map, Mapsco, and of course, the best: ADC of Alexandria. 

* Of course, their graphics used to be just terrible, like Trakker's, but got to be really good, even excellent, after Langenscheidt bought them out and they started adopting ADC's graphics. I actually recoiled in horror when I first looked at an up-to-date American Map Corp. "Arrow" Map in Boston in 2015 after Kappa changed the graphics.

Now here's what I would have done after buying them out and adding Universal to the mix : I would have restored the Arrow brand as a unifier in lieu of Langenscheidt, and continue the adoption of ADC's graphics--the old analog graphics, for they were the best-- by all the rest, even Trakker Crap. Hagstrom I would have publish Travel Guides and combination Atlases and Travel Guides, with the ADC graphics of course. It would have been interesting to see the following message in the DC area on billboards, "WE'RE BACK! ADC, The Official Arrow Map People [with the arrow behind ADC, naturally]. Available everywhere now!" 

But that is not to be.

But enough of my post-mortem of all these local map companies, great and gross.

Here's what I found the day before yesterday at my local CVS: a 2017 Kappa Map Group "Collector's Edition" Road Atlas. I found out upon opening the book that no one in his right mind would want to buy it, let alone collect it anyway! Here's what I found:

Most of the maps within were the same ugly Universal Crap graphics that caused Universal to go bankrupt. Some of the metropolitan and downtown areas maps had graphic that were Crappy's innovations, and those graphics were even worse!!! It *really* takes a lot of HARD WORK to make Universal Crap look good. The innovations were similar to the ADC digital graphics, but with ugly glitches that junked up the whole of each map:

>   Some of the divided through routes and streets were shown as undivided. Why? The edge lines were also drawn too heavy--in other words, too thick.  These "techniques" also made a lot of the downtown ramps systems downright illegible--too much black and dark blue and red. 
>   Of the principal through routes, only the Interstates were shown in blue and US routes in red. The rest, yellow, along with the secondary, tertiary and local through routes. Did anyone even consider to use more red or even orange? It seems to me, the answer is no. 
>   The US Highway shields were of the ugly "PennDot" acorn variety. Guess someone stole a sign in Blue Bell, PA, where the headquarters office is, scanned it, and then miniaturised the result. Couldn't they have found a NORMAL US shield sign? Apparently no, and it shows you how retarded they are (apologies are warranted--these people are SO STUPID it really IS an insult to the mentally challenged to use the word to describe these clowns!). 
>   The state road and county road symbols were unnecessarily elongated with unnecessary prefixes. Couldn't they even have bothered to use boring circles for the state roads, squares for secondary state, and pentagons for the county roads? Again, no; and you know why. 
>   Oh, an here's the real killer: their exit number tabs are each shown as blue numbers on a field of white. Now normally this is not bad--see the old Mapquest Atlases. But where do these unthinking imbeciles place them? On top of the interchange, usually right where you need to see the ramp, especially on a downtown area map. So how do they show Downtown Boston in this atlas, with all the underground ramps of the Big Dig? Simple: they use old Universal Crap graphics. Idiots--but it could've been worse.       
>   On the metro area maps, they show a lot of unnecessary local roads, to the extent of cluttering things up, even to the point of illegibility--which is why most of the metro maps are still shown in Universal Crap graphics. 

Well, let's say farewell to the Crappy Crap Group: good riddance to bad rubbish!--or in this case, merde.

One can only hope.

[sparker]

It's all just too bad -- I really liked the old American Map graphics -- although their methods did seem to favor freeways & divided roads over smaller local facilities in terms of clarity & accuracy -- but they were great to draw & highlight over for "future corridors"!  When Laggy Shit had their "fire sale" to Kappa, I feared the worst -- and was not pleasantly surprised.  I got a 2015 Kappa as a workplace backup atlas, but rarely used it (I think it's in a closet somewhere); it was virtually useless and largely out of date (even the index, which was hardly comprehensive as to town listings).  RIP, Kappa -- you won't be missed!

[Alex]

Doubt they are going under. The map aspect of Kappa is a minor component to the overall company. 

The bad cartography is due in part to them out sourcing the artwork. When I worked there they farmed out a lot of it to RMSI in India. So you got hilarious mispellings, such as the Pro Football Hell of Farms. ...And route shields, they had I-4 shown for Ohio 4 in Cincinnati on a map.

I saw what they did to the ADC atlases when in Delaware recently. It's a damn shame that the ADC quality was destroyed.

Don't know anyone that works there anymore, but it was pretty bad last I did know someone that did.

[EdM]

Doubt they are going under. The map aspect of Kappa is a minor component to the overall company.

And more's the pity. It's like they and RandMcNally* are trying to force everybody online with no recourse to a paper map, street map book, or atlas!

* See RMcN's latest version of city maps and street map books -- outsourced to GM Johnston and their cheesy graphics! 

The bad cartography is due in part to them out sourcing the artwork. When I worked there they farmed out a lot of it to RMSI in India. So you got hilarious mispellings, such as the Pro Football Hell of Farms. ...And route shields, they had I-4 shown for Ohio 4 in Cincinnati on a map.

I saw what they did to the ADC atlases when in Delaware recently. It's a damn shame that the ADC quality was destroyed.

Well according to the website info at least Hagstrom is holding out with their wall maps. Still using ADC graphics for NYC Five Borough, Manhattan, Westchester County, etc. I'm posting up snaps for proof.

Don't know anyone that works there anymore, but it was pretty bad last I did know someone that did.

Hope Donald Trump will put the kibosh to that! Of course, Kappa'd then turn right around and sell their map division to Rand McNally and gods know WHAT RMcN would do then! If I had the money, I'd buyout Kappa, hive off their map group as Arrow Drafting Corporation (ADC -- The Official Arrow Map People) and the Hagstrom Atlas and Travel Guide (using "official" "Arrow" maps) and FIX the damn graphics before letting anything out!

[EdM]

Here are some examples:



Closeup of Northern New Jersey from Kappa Map Group map of NJ. Credit: Stevens Library, Map of New Jersey, closeup on Hoboken and surrounding areas. Map credit: Kappa Map Group [General Drafting Co., Inc]. Photo credit: Romel Espinel, Sept. 10, 2015.

Looks like an old Exxon gas station map copied by hand onto a computer by a complete retard.



ADC's Crappy Map of Montgomery County, MD (according to the Crappy website). Greenbelt is actually in Prince George's County! 

Now the good stuff:



Hagstrom Wall map of Westchester County. White plains area.

[adventurernumber1]

I'm surprised that Kappa might be going out of business. I have a few Kappa maps that my parents and other relatives have given me, but I don't think that I realized how bad they were.

...And route shields, they had I-4 shown for Ohio 4 in Cincinnati on a map.

That is pretty hilariously bad. 

I didn't know that they goofed up like that on their maps, or I at least had never seen it before.

[Brian556]

Kappa ruined Mapsco, which used to be excellent

[EdM]

Kappa ruined Mapsco, which used to be excellent

And MAPSCO bought out "The Roads of..." series of state atlases and gave them their own look. I have both before MAPSCO and after. I didn't think the change was for the better, but at least the maps didn't look like hell. I'd hate to think what they look like now!