James Niehues and Rad Smith on The Future of Hand-Painted Ski Maps

Today, technology is more prevalent than ever. Ski resorts use apps to update lift statuses on the mountain, local buses use apps to allow resort-goers to request rides, and even backcountry skiers can rely on avalanche forecasting apps to foreshadow their expeditions.

What does this mean for renowned ski map artist James Niehues and his prodigy, Rad Smith? Are they, like some of us, dreading technology’s inevitable creep into our day-to-day life, raising our cortisol levels and increasing our productivity in a never-ending chase for “more”?

Or are they welcoming technology’s many conveniences with open arms? Are clients expecting digital assets first and foremost, or is there still the same level of demand for hand-painted maps?

James Niehues began creating maps in the late 1980s, and has been producing hand-painted ski trail maps for 35 years.

Rad Smith is a map illustrator from Bozeman, Montana. Although he did not have early exposure to skiing, due to his childhood spent in the Southeastern United States, he fell in love with the mountains at a young age.

Smith studied fine arts for graphic design in school, knowing he wanted to combine his love for the environment and outdoor activities with artwork. Smith had read interviews with James Niehues, and learned he was starting to contemplate retirement. He didn't really have anyone to pass on his knowledge to.

Smith saw his opportunity. He went out on a limb. “I thought, 'you know what, would it hurt to send him an email and introduce myself?’”

The rest is history. Smith has been working with Niehues since 2015, and now, almost a decade later, Niehues is retired, but Smith is working harder than ever, painting between eight to ten maps a year. Both of their artwork is celebrated and used by ski resorts around the world.

While both artists insisted there will always be demand for both digital and hand-painted maps, neither could deny the initial appeal of the digital medium. Smith elaborated, “A lot of clients have this understanding that making changes to a digital map are easier and faster. I think, in a lot of situations, that may be true. There is some cost savings there, and time savings.”

Smith has clients who foresee a lot of changes over the next three to five years, and elect to take the digital approach. “I try to steer people away from that, and explain that we can do the same with a painted map, but there is a little bit more time involved in painting. Ultimately, it can come down to cost for some folks, along with turn-around. Those are the biggest influences of why.”

Despite Smith's experience of working in the digital realm, both artists pointed to the sentimental value of ski maps. There is a long tradition of using hand-painted maps, and many are still in use today.

Smith notes that, “some of these skiers are still using maps from either right before, or right after, World War II.”

“The more I've been exposed to the breadth of panoramic mountain painters, the more I think there's a reason that Jim [Niehues] took those reigns and really continued with that tradition in North America.”, says Smith.

“People have been painting these big, panoramic maps for two to four-hundred years. There are maps that go back to the 1700s and 1600s that people painted in Europe, and it's just amazing.”

Smith pointed to the potential for the homogenization of ski maps with digital technologies. Although he seemed adamant that digital tools offer lots of options for artists, he was hesitant to embrace them one hundred percent, and fairly so. “Ski areas are beautiful, unique places, and they should be portrayed as that. A painting can really pull out that unique quality of a place and a painting. Things get a little bit homogenized in a digital approach.”

Niehues echoed this sentiment. I asked him what would happen if digital maps “took over,” so to speak, and the hand-painted maps were slowly updated with digital ones.

He thought for a minute, and said, “I think a lot would be lost. I really do worry about AI taking over the creativity of humanity, and certainly I was worrying in my later career as to whether somebody would produce a program that would just copy my style. They could use the program to literally copy my treatment and my shading and everything else.”

“It’s a real concern to me in the future that our creative abilities should not be created by a computer. It's human. It’s part of our humanity and it's part of our interpretation of how we interpret it.”

However, Niehues likely didn't have reason to worry about AI recreating his--or Smith's-- work anytime soon. Niehues explained aspects of the hand-painting process to me, noting that "whenever you take a paintbrush and load it up with your color and water and you stroke it on the paper, that one stroke will have a lot of variations in the color and the tone and the blending of the different pigments. A computer just can't do that. Their image is very straight, and limited even."

"I don't care what they say, or how many colors they have, they still can't blend and come up with this feel that you can with a hand-painted map."

Niehues also explained that there is another, perhaps overlooked, benefit to hand-painted maps. He actively works to draw maps not necessarily to scale, but to how the human mind interprets their experience of skiing that resort or mountain. “I produce [maps] how you ski it, not as if it was a map that you would take a measurement and do everything exactly to scale.”

“Our minds don't work that way. Our minds interpret things. A big part of being a successful ski map illustrator is interpreting the mountain and portraying it like it skis.”

"To show that backside, lots of times that has to be stretched out and through perspective and contortion, I tricked the person to believing that's real. It's just an element that's an interpretation from the mind and not from a computer."

Besides hand-painted maps being more accurate to our skiing experience, Niehues also pointed out the lived experience one has while skiing, and how hand-painted maps reflect this. In simplest terms, hand-painted maps are more aesthetically in tune with the experience of skiing.

“When you go out to ski, you go out into mother nature and it is exhilarating and it's exciting and it's really not an office setting. So much of the computer generated images just remind you of the office. A hand painted one is just more natural, more in tune with nature, and expresses what you're experiencing on the mountain.”

Smith then pointed out the issue of landmarks in ski maps. He was unbiased on how landmarks affect the need for hand-painted or digital map, confirming that there was a space for both. However, hand-painted maps, again, reflect the user experience at a resort, instead of things done exactly to scale.

“This has been brought to my attention in North America, but we put so much emphasis on our parking lots at ski areas. If you look at a European ski map, none of them show parking lots because no one's driving to these ski areas. It's such a culture in North America that I had someone from Europe ask me, ‘why do you and Jim put so much focus on the parking lots?’ Those are important landmarks in North American ski areas.”

On the other hand, digital tools have their place when considering the stylization of maps, especially when the resort or client is after a “cleaner” and informational look. Smith offered that “Big ski areas, they're not just requesting a map for just the ski area. A lot of large areas have kids programs or kids-only obstacle courses, and they want a fun kids map that may need to have a different look and feel. There are some digital trail map companies out there that focus more on those.”

“Sometimes, you don't need the aesthetic of a painted map, and you might want a clean digital map that shows building locations or parking lots or something that has a lot of logos or kids icons or graphics on there that are just easier to develop in the digital environment.”

When asked point-blank what the future holds for ski map painting, Smith said, "each week I have a slightly different opinion. Right now, I think there's a big return of a lot of ski areas wanting to go back to a hand-painted map."

"They want that traditional look. I've had plenty of ski areas who went from painted to digital and now want to come back to painted. I think there's room for both."

"I do hope that the tradition of painted maps continues, I think it's going to continue in Europe. I think there's a strong push for that. I hope I can contribute to it as much as I can. If someone does come to me and wants to learn from me or from Jim or anybody, I would highly encourage that too."

"With so much digital technology in our lives, I'm optimistic that people are re-appreciating traditional crafts.”

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