A giant Where's Waldo on Google Maps

by Rob Peters | April 9, 2008 at 10:13 am | 3555 views | 8 comments

Art student Melanie Coles has taken Where's Waldo to the real-world next level with her graduation project for the Emily Carr Institute. She's created a giant image of Waldo that can be searched for on Google Maps.

Very cool idea. Wouldn't it be great if people around the world painted massive Waldos everywhere? Google Maps would be so much funner.

While others aim to spam Google Maps, Melanie Coles is instead using the popular online mapping application to graduate from school, relying on satellite imaging technology for her final project at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Dubbed "Where on Earth is Waldo", Coles has adopted the "go-big-or-go-home" attitude and has created a massive sixteen-meter version of the normally one-centimeter-tall Waldo on giant sheets of vinyl using the classic Renaissance grid method. To ensure her novelty-sized Waldo doesn't get blown away by our monsoon-like weather systems, Coles enlisted her friends for a little slave labour, "borrowing" sand from a local beach to fill small black sand bags for the outline of Waldo's lanky figure.

Her primary goal is to capture Waldo on Google Maps, so that geeks everywhere with access to the internet can find Waldo on the grandest scale possible... Earth. She figures that Vancouver's due for a satellite image refresh pretty damn soon, since it hasn't had one in the last two-and-a-half years, and new photos are taken every three years at most. I wonder how long it will be before someone figures they can do the same thing with a gargantuan phallic symbol...

Think you can figure out what rooftop Waldo's on? Clues can be found in the picture and on her site.

Add a comment Comments (8)

Jarrett Martineau
good stuff:

Someone should create a fake Waldo Twitter account so people can 'follow' what Waldo is doing and try to anticipate where he'll show up next. That's some next level Waldoing.

nathanialfreitas

http://twitter.com/canyoufindwaldo

jsrcyclist

What more is there to say . . .I found Waldo checking out an art booth at the Delray Affair in Delray Beach, Florida.

jsrcyclist has contributed a photo to this story.

ScienceDave

In case anyone was curious, the artist's sister posted a story to NP here.

TAPorto

I took this photo at the Barack Obama at the Kohl Center in Madison, WI (2-12-2008). It was the most packed I've ever seen the Kohl Center. We must have broken a few fire codes. Even Waldo made an appearance.

TAPorto has contributed a photo to this story.

sanobaby.

I was walking down the street on Clinton Street and Washington Avenue in Brooklyn, New York when I spotted Waldo on the WALK sign. I found it hilarious so I took a picture. There are many others in that area, but I liked that one the most.

sanobaby. has contributed a photo to this story.

Maxamilian12

Taken in Paris, France

Maxamilian12 has contributed a photo to this story.

kylechu

Erm, I got bored.

kylechu has contributed a photo to this story.

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April 9, 2008 at 10:13 am by Rob Peters, 3555 views, 8 comments

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Jarrett Martineau
First Flagged at 10:18 AM, Apr 9, 2008 by Jarrett Martineau
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