Sunday, February 7, 2016

Cartographic Design and Perceptual Organization

Hello!

In this lab our goal was to create a map according to end user needs by establishing a visual hierarchy to emphasize important features of our map and to effectively contrast map features in order to imply importance. We did this by implementing figure-ground, contrast, and balance, in order to create a harmonious organization and presentation of our map elements.

My Map
My Process:
 
I used the TOC in ArcMap to organize my symbols and map elements more effectively. I placed the school symbology at the top of my layer, to not overlap them with less important elements. I properly symbolized and sized them in order to stand out on the map. Next, I placed my roads in rank order: Interstate, US Highway, State Highway, Major Streets, DC Streets, and Ward 7 Streets. With decreasing rank, I decreased the width line by half a point to a point. Also, the non-major roads were given a lighter color line in order to avoid a conglomerate of bold colors. Additionally, I clipped out the non-major roads and schools that are not inclusive to the Ward 7 area. This helped to emphasize the importance of the Ward 7 area by decluttering its surroundings. Next in place was parks and surface water. Surface water was made a duller blue in order to not be too contrasting with my overall theme.  Last are the neighborhoods, neighborhood clusters, and DC boundary. I used greens in order to create a distinct figure-ground. I emphasized importance on my legend, scale bar, inset map, and map title by making them proportionately larger and putting them in empty map space. I deemphasized the source data, cartographer’s info, date, and inset map titles by making them smaller.
Last, I used Adobe Illustrator solely for typography. There, I made my map title, inset map titles, cartographer information, source information, date, and labeling for the Potomac River.

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