Results tagged “Blogs” from Intelligent Travel Blog

We're always excited when a new National Geographic blog enters the fray, and for the past few weeks Blog Wild editor Ford Cochran has been publishing some seriously great content at a steady clip. Blog Wild covers all of the missions-related news at the society - from the work our explorers are doing out in the field to the programs and events that are happening in the building (Angelina Jolie's recent visit to our offices falls into the latter category, she was here speaking about U.N. World Refugee Day last week). Ford's got a great voice, and he's providing a sneak peek at the inner workings here, including a story about this behind-the-scenes shot (above) taken by Tim Greenleaf of Nat Geo Expeditions during a visit to Kenya's Amboseli National Park:

"Photography rule number one," Tim admonished. "Don't forget to look behind you!"

In fairness, Tim noted that the photographer and videographer above might have been filming, say, Amboseli's deeply endangered lions rather than the elephants. But still.

Congrats to Ford and the Blog Wild crew for a great launch. Bookmark Blog Wild now to keep up with all things National Geographic. 

[Blog Wild]

This month's issue of National Geographic (or the "yellow mag" as we call it around the office) has a fascinating map that translates the Native American placenames from sites throughout the U.S. After poking around, we learned that Missouri translates to 'Dugout Canoe,' while Manhattan means 'where one gathers wood for bows.' So how did they put the map together?

Press play to watch the design evolve

Luckily our friend Oliver over at The Process, the new NG blog which explains how they design the art for the "yellow magazine," has a cool video and story about how they created the map for this month's issue:

In the spring of 2008, one of our editors read that the U.S. Board on Geographical Names had renamed 16 valleys, creeks, and other sites employing the term "squaw" because, as it turns out, many Native Americans consider "the S word" a profane term for female genitalia. Intrigued, we wondered what other placenames really mean.

By July, an eager intern had assembled a few pages of Native American placenames--and what seemed like their translations. But we soon learned that finding an accurate translation isn't easy. Centuries worth of conflicting theories abound.

Suffice it to say that some serious scholarship had to go into the making of the map and it took almost a full year to actually assemble this "typographic puzzle." Check out NG Blog Central for more. 

Video: Oliver Uberti

News from the NG Blogosphere:

• Pop Omnivore asked guests at the White House Correspondents Dinner how green they've been acting lately.