Fantasy map-making: 'I like vintage style with a modern twist'

Slovakian graphic designer Martin Vargic’s maps look historic but depict modern phenomena, from internet to climate crisis and, soon, the world according to Trump

I started drawing maps of fantasy worlds when I was eight. As I got older, I moved on to making maps of real historical periods, then modern-world maps, and started publishing them online.

My Map of the Internet includes the land of YouTube, the islands of Deep Web and Great Southern Land. This last is a forgotten wasteland full of obsolete services and websites. My conceptual map, which came to the media’s notice in 2014, shows websites like countries on a classic world map. The biggest countries are the sites with the most visitors or the companies with the most users. The great eastern continent, the Old World, is all software and gaming companies. The western part, the New World, comprises two major continents: the northern one of social networks, websites, blogs and forums, and the southern one of dating sites, adult websites and internet crime.