The GSAPP Spatial Information Design Lab is a think- and action-tank for the visual display of spatial information. Its founding and ongoing project has been a university wide one, to develop a meta-data standard for the growing archive of GIS data, and a suitable interface for this kind of spatial data. The lab will take a productive and yet critical approach to the field of GIS, and work with spatial data to design innovative ways in which the resulting images, or maps, might communicate what they picture with clarity, integrity, responsibility, creativity and invention.