I’m a graphic artist living in Aarhus, Denmark and I work under the name DAU-DAW. I grew up in the countryside where I developed a great love for both nature and animals – all of which are reflected in my work below. I spend between a few days and several weeks creating each of these little worlds.
The “maps” are all divided into different countries and every mountain, every lake, every city and every ocean in these pieces are named after everything relevant to the title of each piece. Take for example Felidae – Land of the Lion. Everything in this “map” is named after both fictional and actual lion species that are either extinct or still around today.
No actual geographical locations are presented in any of these pieces. Everything has been drawn from scratch by me using mostly Illustrator. I hope you like it!
More info: Instagram | daudaw.com
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Ursidae - Land Of The Panda
Obviously the capital city in 'Land of the Panda' is named after the big, fluffy and bamboo eating Giant Panda (ailuropoda melanoleuca) we all know and love 🐼🐼🐼 And if you look closely you can see tiny crosses in front of some of the names in the close-up picture to the right. Those crosses mean that the spieces they are infront of have gone extinct (don't worry - in most cases it happened a looong time ago!).
Felidae - Land Of The Lion
This map is made in the image of the Lion. Mountains, seas, lakes, cities etc. are all named after spieces belonging to the family of Felidae. The Felidae comprises two subfamilies, the Pantherinae and the Felinae. The former includes the Panthera species: lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard, clouded leopard and the sunda clouded leopard. All the non-pantherine cats are part of the Felinae, which includes several genera and the majority of cat species - aswell as the domestic cat.
Strigiformes - Land Of The Owl
Strigiformes (owls) consists of six families, where two of them (Strigidae and Tytonidae) includes all extant owl spieces - Some 220 to 225 in total. Fitting 220+ owl names into one map was quite a challenge!
Land Of Monstera
For those who havn't noticed, this map was made in the image of a plant (monstera) and not an animal :) Monstera is a genus of about 50 species of flowering plants.
Giraffoidea - Land Of The Giraffe
Giraffoidea is a superfamily that includes many spieces where most have been extinct for a very long time. The only extant members in this superfamily are the pronghorn, okapi, and ofcourse the giraffe.
Ailuridae - Land Of The Red Panda
Mustelidae - Land Of The Otter
Anatidae - Land Of The Swan
Accipitridae - Land Of The Eagle
Land of the Eagle is made in the image of the bald eagle and mountains, seas, lakes, cities etc. are all named after bird spieces belonging to the family of Accipitridae (hawks, true eagles, seaeagles and snake-eagles) approx. 60 in total :)
Leporidae - Land Of The Rabbit
Leporidae is the family of rabbits and hares, containing over 60 species of extant mammals in all. This map was made in the image of the rabbit - but i will do the hare aswell at some point :)
E. F. Caballus - Land Of The Horse
Spheniscidae - Land Of The Penguin
Pantherinae - Land Of Big Cats
Panthera - Land Of The Jaguar
That's very creative! I have a degree in geography so you got me!
I am so glad to hear that, Monika :) That must mean I have succeeded in making my work look like real maps!
Sure thing! I like how you use both terrain and ocean to create the picture.
Great. Loved it!
Yay! Awesome :)
I like how the jaguar one was mostly water, so u can differentiate from the big cats
Awesome :) Land of Big Cats is made in the image of the tiger. Both the jaguar and the tiger are great swimmers, so all the water represented in those maps are actually kinda fitting i think
That's very creative! I have a degree in geography so you got me!
I am so glad to hear that, Monika :) That must mean I have succeeded in making my work look like real maps!
Sure thing! I like how you use both terrain and ocean to create the picture.
Great. Loved it!
Yay! Awesome :)
I like how the jaguar one was mostly water, so u can differentiate from the big cats
Awesome :) Land of Big Cats is made in the image of the tiger. Both the jaguar and the tiger are great swimmers, so all the water represented in those maps are actually kinda fitting i think