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Trailblazing Cartography: Purple Lizard Maps Earns Top Industry Honors
For years, Purple Lizard Maps has been proud to create industry leading, best in class maps for your outdoor adventures.
We know that your best adventures start with outstanding maps, so we are super proud of the effort and time and expertise we put into each of the maps we make for you.
While our greatest reward is hearing from you, our customers, about your adventures with Purple Lizard Maps, we are also super honored when we receive recognition for our commitment to excellence from our peers in the mapmaking and outdoor recreation space.
The Latest Purple Lizard Awards & Recognition
2024 President's Award Pennsylvania Parks and Forest Foundation
We were honored to receive the 2024 President's Award from the Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation. The President's Award recognizes outstanding citizens or businesses who made an impact in protecting open space, conservation, outdoor recreation, or volunteerism. "Purple Lizard Map’s commitment to detail and connecting people to the outdoors through their maps, along with their commitment to conservation, has earned the respect of many outdoor enthusiasts." explained Marci Mowery, President of PPFF. The award banquet was held at Little Buffalo State Park #ppffawardsbanquet2024 #ilovemystateparkspa
Pictures Left to right: Marci Mowery (PPFF President), Justine Andronici, Michael Hermann, and the Presidents award sponsors: Jeffery Sheaffer (Stahl-Sheaffer Engineering), and Rod Stahl (Stahl-Sheaffer Engineering).
Atlas of Design Volume 7
The Pennsylvania Outdoor Recreation Lizard Map has won another international design award - inclusion in the 7th Volume of the North American Cartographic Information Society's Atlas of Design, a prestigious publication issued every two years dedicated to showing off some of the world's "most beautiful and intriguing cartographic design." We were also thrilled to learn that the Shenandoah Lizard Maps were also hot contenders for this prestigious design award! This is the first Purple Lizard Map to be recognized and included in the Atlas of Design and we are very proud of Michael and the cartographic design team at Purple Lizard Maps.
2023 CaGIS Award
The Pennsylvania Outdoor Recreation Lizard Map was also recognized as one of the top three Recreation and Travel maps published in 2023 by CaGIS, the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, which is the leading international network of developers, researchers, and educators in the field of Cartography and GIScience.
Big thanks again to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation for their support that made the PA Outdoor Recreation Map possible!
If you are a map geek like we are, you can check some of our other awards and recognition in the list at the end of the blog.
The skill and experience it takes to bring you that map that you count on for adventures of all kinds comes from an expertise earned over decades and the continuous commitment to excellence from your team at Purple Lizard.
A bit about our history - a track record of excellence.
What started as our founder Michael Hermann's vision to make the best outdoor recreation maps anywhere has come to life over the past three decades and Purple Lizard Maps is now a publisher of nationally recognized best in class recreational maps.
Michael Hermann, a Penn State University trained geographer and cartographer who studied with and learned from some of the industry giants in cartography and digital design launched Purple Lizard Maps in 1997 with one vision: to make the best outdoor recreation map of his home outdoor recreation playground, Rothrock State Forest in Central Pennsylvania.
After publishing his first Purple Lizard Map, Michael went on to a full time career in academic cartography, working as the Senior Cartographer for the Canadian American Center at the University of Maine for more than a decade.
At UMaine he designed several award winning narrative maps and served as the Lead Cartographic Designer for his academic career opus, the Historical Atlas of Maine which won numerous national awards in 2016 including The Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography from the American Association of Geographers; “Best of Show” from the Cartographic and Geographic Information Society; “Best Book/Atlas”; the Cartographic and Geographic Information Society; and the Excellence in Publishing Award from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.
After honing his digital design and narrative mapping skills at UMaine, Michael returned to Pennsylvania and Purple Lizard Maps. He met his wife Justine in 2010 and together they worked to grow Purple Lizard Maps, offering you new Lizard Maps to explore every year.
Over the years, Michael has added other fantastic designers to the Lizard Maps design team - each of them committed to doing best in class recreational cartography. Cartographers Erin Greb and Bill Wilgus work closely with Michael to bring you all of the Purple Lizard Maps - each new Lizard Map or edition better than the last.
Michael explains Purple Lizard's unique approach to map desgin:
"I learned a long time ago that the most important thing you can give a map is time. At Purple Lizard we give each map the time it needs to be the best possible map it can be. We do this by committing to doing our best in the professional tradition of cartography and combining old world map-making techniques including careful on the ground research in the field, with cutting edge digital design techniques. We keep commitment to making the best maps possible for our customers at the center of everything we do. "
Learn More about Our History:
Video: Adventure Cartography Lecture at Garrett College
More Selected Design Awards
2024: Design award, Recreation and Travel map category, 51st American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “Pennsylvania Outdoor Recreation Lizard Map”.Published by Purple Lizard Maps (2023). Cartographic designer and publisher, co-designed with Justine Andronici, Bill Wilgus and Erin Greb.
2016: The Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography, American Association of Geographers, Historical Atlas of Maine, University of Maine Press.
2016: “Best of Show,” Cartographic and Geographic Information Society, Historical Atlas of Maine, University of Maine Press.
2016: “Best Book/Atlas,” Cartographic and Geographic Information Society, Historical Atlas of Maine, University of Maine Press.
2016: Excellence in Publishing Award, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Historical Atlas of Maine, University of Maine Press.
2019: Design award, Recreation and Travel map category, 47th American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “Ohiopyle, Laurel Highlands”.Published by Purple Lizard Maps (2019). Cartographic designer and publisher, co-designed with Erin Greb.
2011: Design award, best recreational map category, 38th American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “Rothrock State Forest”.Published by Purple Lizard Maps (2010). Cartographic designer and publisher.
2009: Design award, thematic category, 36th American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “They Would Not Take Me There: People, Places, and Stories from Champlain’s Travels in Canada, 1603-1616”published by the University of Maine Canadian-American Center (2008). Co-designed with Margaret Wickens Pearce.
2009: Inclusion in Cartographic Design Annual #2, featuring They Would Not Take Me There, NACIS.org
2008: Inclusion in Cartographic Design Annual #1, featuring Thoreau Wabanaki Trail, NACIS.org
2008: Design award, recreation category, 35th American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail,”published by Maine Woods Forever (2007). Designer and principal cartographer.
2007: Design award, Best in Class: recreation category, 34th American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “Maine’s Ice Age Trail,”published by the University of Maine Climate Change Institute (2006). Designer and principal cartographer.
2007: Outstanding Professional Employee Award, The University of Maine. Noted for Michael's complete redesign of the street signs, building signage and wayfinding system as well as campus maps and information kiosks at the University of Maine falgship campus in Orono, Maine.
2005: Design award, recreation category, 32nd American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Ca-GIS Map Design Competition, for “Maine Appalachian Trail Map Series,” published by the Maine Appalachian Trail Club (2004). Lead cartographer.
1998: Design award, recreation category, 25th Annual American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Map Design Competition, 1998, for “Recreational Map of Rothrock State Forest,” published by Purple Lizard Maps (1997). Cartographer and publisher.
1995: E. Willard Miller Award in Cartography, The Pennsylvania State University, for outstanding cartographic design.
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