Whispering Bay is presented as a piece of fantasy cartography rather than a bare navigation diagram. The material treatment matters because the map itself is part of the storytelling.
When building maps for campaigns, fiction, or personal worldbuilding, it helps to treat the page as an artifact with a history. Labels, geographic forms, ornament, and aged texture can reinforce one another without making the map difficult to read.
The working principle is simple: give the world character, then protect the information. A convincing map still needs to guide the eye.