This week I had the pleasure of working on an assignment that covered the 'Principles of Map Design' in my GIS 5007L Cartography Lab Class! In this lab, I was tasked with finding two maps: one that I thought to be well designed, and one that I thought to be poorly designed. In order to assess whether or not a map is well designed or poorly designed, I first had to assess what good principles of map making were. I found that the best principles to grade a map on were: the visual contrast of the map (How do the elements of the map and its features contrast each other?), the legibility of the map (Can the map data be seen easily, but most importantly, can the data be understood by the intended audience?), and finally balance (Are all the map elements organized, and are they organized in a logical way?). Below you will find the two maps I used with their respective evaluations.
Well Designed Map:
Overall, I believe that this map effectively meets the goal
that it is trying to achieve and that it conveys the information clearly and
concisely. I grade this map as a well-done map as it demonstrates a clear
understanding of the data it utilizes. This map also utilizes a visual contrast
not only in colors of the variables being mapped, but also in the symbology
using a color ramp (with notable breaks) for one variable, and dot size for the
other. The map also has good visibility as all the components can easily be
seen and distinguished, but it also provides good balance as all the items are
evenly spaced and logically organized. I think that this map appeals to my
aesthetic for a variety of reasons. First, I believe that using a color ramp vs
a dot size for two different variables is a super effective way to contrast
your data variables. Secondly, I believe it is crucial that a map creator
describes in wordage the intent of the map and the goal that they hope it will
achieve such as this one does. Lastly, I strongly believe that all maps should
be geometrically clean and chiseled with no hang over or sloppy lines. This map
gets a 9.8/10 from me.
Poorly Designed Map:
While I understand the purpose this map is trying to serve I
believe that it does not achieve it in an effective manner. I believe that so
much more could have been done to make this map beautiful in terms of the work
put in and could have been a much more powerful map with a few edits here and
there. I would have to rate this map as a poorly designed map for a few
reasons. First, this map has little to no visual contrast. Everything is in a
grayscale color pattern and there are no changes of color for different values
of the data. Second the map lacks legibility. When looking at this map its
almost impossible to distinguish the different circles as they are all the same
color and shade. Also, while the map clearly distinguishes between single home
and condominium sales, it only does it by adding a second DC area but still
uses circular symbols. For this map to be improved, I would do several things
differently. First, I would change the symbology for sale price by making
unique value-based range dots. This would not only cut down on the clutter and
crammed feel of the map but would also give the viewer a detailed color scheme
that would be able to show the price ranges of home sales. Secondly, there is
no north arrow in this map, so I would additionally add one as well was change
the scale bar unit to yards for US unit purposes. Lastly, I would make the
borders and titles darker I would also add color to the river and even provide
a basemap that has labels of city/town features as well as make sure no
features extend beyond the border of DC. This map receives a 3.5/10 from me.
Final thoughts:
Making maps that show a clear and concise message to the intended audience can be challenging at times. Being able to know how a map should look, think about the audience who will be seeing the map, and creating a message to that audience without taking too much from the map or over sharing can be tough in the planning phases of your project. A good way to overcome this is to gather all of the information you can before you even open your mapping software. Being able to design some rough concepts and get feedback on them before publishing a final project can be a huge step towards successful map making. In this assignment lab, it was challenging to grade these maps because without talking to the creator themselves it is nearly impossible to know the factors that influenced their design. Regardless I believe that these two maps show the challenges that come with this trade and what it takes to be an effective cartographer.
Stay tuned for my next post on pairing Adobe Illustrator with ArcGIS Pro, and as always, Map On!
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