Map of the Week-Dining in Knoxville

User Friendly Maps won both second and third place in the Recreational/Travel category of this year's Map Design Competition from the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. Here is the second place entry, a plate shaped map showing where to eat in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.

At first glance I was unsure about this design but examining it more closely, I think it really works well. The author has made a large amount of information clearly legible by spinning the text out to the edges of the plate. There is a "B" code for restaurants that have bars in the blue ring. The white area indicates the style of food. If there was some generalized color codes for these it might help out the visitor who is looking for a specific type of food but otherwise it works well.
This map also accomplishes what a good visitor map should by making me want to visit Knoxville, stroll along Market Square and sample some Nuevo Latino or Asian French cuisine.