You may remember those cool little carpets that had little roads and cartoony buildings on them that gave you a chance to drive your Hot Wheels around on something that was more reminiscent of a road than a linoleum floor. Well, it’s the future now, so we’re past that. Nowadays, you get a blanket that’s custom-made to be a giant map of your neighborhood, or anywhere else you choose, based on data from Google Maps. Or a “mapkin“ napkin if you want to go a little smaller. This is precisely the service Soft Cities provides, and it is pretty sweet.
The process is pretty simple. First, you choose whether you want a mapkin or a map-blanket (mlanket? blanmap?). Then you pick the color scheme you would like, then you pick the addresses, if any, that you’d like marked by arrows, and what you’d like those arrows to say. All you have to do is place your order and bam, the cuddliest maps you’ve ever snuggled.
They don’t exactly come cheap, however. A pack off 2 mapkins will run you $65, and a Blmapket (or whatever) will run you $175. Sure. the idea is pretty neat, but I’m not sure any blanket — blermpkert or not — is worth that much. Still, you’d be hard pressed to wipe your face with a paper map even once, and trying to warm yourself under an iPad with Google Maps on it is even less comfortable than you’d think.
If this seems like your jam, you can hop over to Soft Cities here. If not, you can scroll down for some more pictures while you swaddle yourself in a boring non-blarmpket blanket and try to visualize what corner the grocery store is on.
(via Laughing Squid, images via Soft Cities)
Published: May 10, 2012 07:36 pm