If you want to know more about the blog and the person who runs it, you've come to the right place. I've written a little bit about different things below but if you want to know anything else about the blog feel free to get in touch.
Data
This blog wouldn't exist without data, so I thought I'd say a little bit about it here. I get data from a variety of sources, including OS OpenData, Natural Earth and the Scottish Government. I've put links to these on the Data section of the site. I also use Census data, data from Government departments and anything else I can get my hand on.
Software
I mainly use ArcGIS but also use QGIS. Sometimes I do a bit of post-map work in GIMP, which sounds a bit dodgy but actually stands for the 'GNU Image Manipulation Program'. QGIS and GIMP are free tools. For interactive mapping I mainly use Google Fusion Tables, which is quite basic but effective, and CartoDB. My basic philosophy is to use whatever gets the job done. For colour choices, I often rely on ColorBrewer.
Name of blog
Just in case you're not au fait with Scottish lingo, the name of the blog - 'gonnaemapit' - comes from a phrase commonly used in parts of Scotland when someone wants you to do something for them - e.g. 'gonnae gies a haun?' would, roughly translated, mean 'please come to my assistance?'; literally, 'going to give me a hand?'. I chose this url because it was only 0.80p on GoDaddy it reflects my deep love of the Glasgow dialect.
Fonts
I'm not sure that experts use the word 'font' but just in case you're into this kind of thing and want to know, the header font is Oswald and the page text is Open Sans. You can download these and install them on your own computer.
Header image
The eagle-eyed will have spotted that the header image of the blog depicts the central part of Glasgow, but doesn't quite look right. That's because I've flipped it upside down. I did this because the river got in the way when it was the right way up to make a statement about the subjectiveness of geographical depictions.
Me
I'm Alasdair Rae, and I work as a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. Before that I worked at the University of Manchester and before that I did a PhD at the University of Liverpool. I'm originally from Inverness.
