Spacing magazine presents the CREATIVE MAPPING CONTEST Do you love maps? Are you an illustrator, graphic designer, or visual storyteller? Spacing wants you to submit your original creative maps inspired by a Canadian city. WHAT MAKES A MAP CREATIVE The art of map-making has taken tremendous strides in the digital age. In the last decade, there has been an explosion of maps that are not necessarily meant to be used for directions, but instead are considered works of art and inspired imagination. We want you to create an illustrative map that reflects a Canadian city (or a neighbourhood, community) or is inspired by the urban elements that make up a city (examples: waterfront, transit, cycling, walking, graffiti, parks, architecture, laneways/alleys, streets, traffic, taxis, weather, sewers, infrastructure, etc...). The above map — featured in our current issue — is a good example of creative mapping. DEADLINE: By the end of the day today! If you want to submit and cannot meet today's deadline please send us an email [ creativemapping@spacing.ca ] and we can work something out. We're more concerned with quality entries than with strident deadlines! COST: Free!

Spacing magazine presents the CREATIVE MAPPING CONTEST Do you love maps? Are you an illustrator, graphic designer, or visual storyteller? Spacing wants you to submit your original creative maps inspired by a Canadian city. WHAT MAKES A MAP CREATIVE The art of map-making has taken tremendous strides in the digital age. In the last decade, there has been an explosion of maps that are not necessarily meant to be used for directions, but instead are considered works of art and inspired imagination. We want you to create an illustrative map that reflects a Canadian city (or a neighbourhood, community) or is inspired by the urban elements that make up a city (examples: waterfront, transit, cycling, walking, graffiti, parks, architecture, laneways/alleys, streets, traffic, taxis, weather, sewers, infrastructure, etc...). The above map — featured in our current issue — is a good example of creative mapping. DEADLINE: Monday, April 30th, 2012 COST: Free!

William Whyte got it right: the legendary urbanist created the film "The Social Life of Small Places" that has become one of the best learning tools for students, professionals, and urbanists about understanding the dynamics of public spaces. The films is almost an hour long, but its worth that watch on a Sunday afternoon.

WHAT: Spacing's 2nd national issue release party WHEN: Friday February 3rd, 2012, 9pm-1am WHERE: Canvas Lounge (99 Powell St. in Gastown) HOW MUCH: free! (mag costs $5) RSVP: Let us know if you can come at our Facebook event listing The editors of Spacing and contributors of Spacing Vancouver are excited to announce that the magazine will host a release party at the Canvas Lounge in Vancouver to celebrate the publication of the newest national issue. We will have some fun activities and a few door prizes. This event is held in conjunction with the annual conference for the Canadian Association of Planning Students (CAPS).

As we mentioned last week, Spacing will continue to publish a national edition of the magazine twice a year (plus two Toronto-centric editions a year). That means we need to expand our cast of contributors (more specifically photographers). If you love to photograph your city — wherever that may be in Canada — we want to see your images. You can add us as a contact on Flickr, or if you really want to be helpful to our production team, you can add your photos to the national issue's Flickr group. ...

With the success of Spacing's first national issue — our special summer edition has sold twice as well as any previous issue we've ever published — our editors have decided that we will continue to provide our readers with pan-Canada coverage of everything urban. Since 2003, Spacing has published 22 issues with all but one of them focused exclusively on Toronto urbanism. As we've expanded our blog network across Canada — Montreal in 2007, Ottawa and the Atlantic cities ...

Across the Spacing Blog Network today we are asking our readers in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Otttawa, and the Atlantic cities to let us know which work of local public art is your favourite (feel free to name more than one). We want to hear back from our readers on what they like/dislike about our shared public spaces so we plan to run this feature with regularity. If possible, please provide a link to a photo you are commenting about. We suggest using Flickr as the photographers ...

OTTAWA — Long-time City Councillor and recent mayoral candidate Clive Doucet has joined Spacing's city blog network as Urban Policy columnist for Spacing Ottawa, it was announced today by Spacing Ottawa editor Evan Thornton. “We are delighted to have an urbanist and writer of Clive’s accomplishment with us at Spacing,” Thornton said. “Our mandate at Spacing is to explore the urban landscape, and as his career has shown, there is no one thinking more clearly and incisively about urban issues in Canada. There are few writers with more practical experience on the challenges facing cities in an age of economic contraction than Clive Doucet.”