Tell a travel story with journey maps

A journey map can connect the places in a project. For a clear regional or multi-city travel story with usable location details, Motif Studio plans a map automatically when your photo and page limits allow it. An automatic map gets its own page, without a caption. You can ask for no maps during creation. Photos from a single venue do not need an automatic journey map. You can manually add a map of any place you name to a photo book, memo book, calendar, or card — even when your photos carry no location information.

When a map works best

Journey maps render on detailed OpenStreetMap-based maps, so they stay readable at any scale — from a city walk with real streets and labels to a regional, country, or multi-country route. Zoom in for local detail or out to show the whole journey.

For readability, one map uses up to ten meaningful stops; a shorter route can use fewer. A dense trip may keep the strongest anchors or use several smaller maps. Nearby photos associated with the same town may be represented by one stop.

Select and style a map

Select a map in Edit view to open its map toolbar.

• Style switches the map between six looks — Liberty (the default), Bright, Positron, Dark, Fiord, and 3D — without changing its route or stops. Each option shows a preview, and the change applies immediately.
• Border sets a border around the map — its thickness, corner radius, and color — the same way you border a photo.
• Points opens the stop list and route options.
• Remove deletes the map from the page; Undo can restore it.

On a phone, these tools sit in a row at the bottom of the screen, with Arrange beside them for moving the map in front of or behind other elements. The zoom in, zoom out and reset buttons move off the map to the top of the screen, above the page, and stay there while a tool's panel is open. Tap a tool to open its panel above the row and tap it again to close it; the page scrolls so the map stays in view. Choose Done at the top of the screen when you have finished with the map.

Use the controls directly on the map to pan, zoom, or reset its framing. While a map is selected, scrolling or pinching over it zooms at the cursor, and double-clicking zooms in one level on the clicked spot. Scrolling over an unselected map keeps moving through the editor.

A map's box works like a window onto the map: making the box larger reveals more of the surrounding area, and making it smaller shows less, without changing the map's zoom. Resizing the box, whether with its drag handles, by dragging the divider between page elements, or by adding or removing other elements on the page, never shrinks or enlarges the map itself, and stop markers and labels always stay the same size. The current map stays visible throughout a live resize while the newly revealed area finishes drawing. If a stop falls outside the smaller window, pan the map or zoom out to bring it back into view.

Maps follow your project's photo border style. A theme with photo borders gives maps the same border, applying a border to all images includes maps too, and a newly added map already wears your current border style. You can also set a map's border directly with the Border tool. (A full-bleed map that runs to the page edge can't take a border, so the Border tool is hidden there.)

Edit stops, route, and labels

Open Points to:

1. turn the route or labels on and off;
2. rename, show, hide, or delete a stop;
3. drag stops into the order the journey should follow;
4. search for a place by name and select a result to add it as a stop — the map pans to show the new point; or
5. choose Add Point, then select a place on the visible map. A hint above the map confirms placement mode is on; click or tap the map to drop the point, or press Esc (or choose Add Point again) to cancel.

The stop list runs from top to bottom, and the route follows that order. You can also drag a visible marker to refine its position when nearby stops overlap.

Map any place

Open an eligible surface's Page options menu and choose Add Map to Page…. The dialog leads with a text field where you can type any place or area, with any suggested trip and chapter maps listed below it. As you type, matching places appear under the field — the same place search the Points panel uses. Selecting a match fills the field with that place, which helps when several places share a name (pick the right Sutton, not just the best-known one); choose Add Map to add a map with a single stop at exactly that place, then add more stops from the map's Points panel whenever you want them. If you skip the matches and just submit what you typed, Motif Studio maps the closest match for your words the same way. Places are looked up by name, so this works even when your photos have no location information.

Maps in your printed product

Maps print with the same framing, style, stops, and labels you see in the editor — there is no separate preparation step to wait for. Products with a back logo place one small "© OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap" project credit below that logo. Memo books place it on the inside back cover, centered near the bottom edge, while coverless desk calendars place it in the final card's date panel. The credit is not repeated inside each map.

Map placement limits

Manual maps are available on regular photo-book interior pages (not covers or panoramic spreads); memo-book back, inside-front, and inside-back covers; wall-calendar monthly photo pages and the back cover; desk-calendar photo and date-grid panels; and every editable card face.

For other page arrangements, see Work with pages and layouts. Before buying, use Review before ordering to check page warnings across the project.