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Cartographic Design in GIS

Cartographic Design in GIS notes

What is a Map?

  • Argument
  • Implied authority
    • i.e. people following GPS into a lake
  • Communication goal

Why cartography matters

  • Maps primary role is visual communication
  • Effective communication supports our work
    • Good design enhances communication
    • Poor design breaks down communication
  • Cartography in GIS is about making effective maps, not pretty maps
  • Quality of visuals often affects perception of work
  • Missed opportunity to communicate with map effectively can nullify work you've done

Warm up examples

  • Minimize need for legend. Let map do as much of the work as possible
  • Map should be able to stand on it's own
  • Having a story element can be very beneficial
    • Makes more engaging.

Questions

  • What is maps purpose?
    • Purpose drives decisions
  • Who is the map for?
    • Experts can handle more complex info
    • Non-experts may req simplified map
  • How will the map be displayed?
    • Mediums have very different specifications
  • Note: Our research maps often poor for display

Visual Hierarchy

  • Visual order
    • Somethings stand out, some fall back
  • Design choices effect visual order
  • Visual hierarchy follows the intellectual hierarchy
    • Must understand purpose and audience before you can build visual hierarchy
  • VH derived from Figure-ground effect
    • Figures on maps are seen as separate from the rest of the map
    • Evolutionary, for picking out what's important (threats food, etc)
  • Contrast emphasizes F-G relationship
    • Darker/brighter features stand out
    • Features w/less contrast appear to belong together
  • Generally better to start neutral and push things back than to really pump things up in VH
  • Detail: selectively remove data to emphasize other data

Generalization and Simplification

  • Fewer data are often better
  • Reduce map clutter to emphasize the message
  • Simplify representation

Data Classification

  • Grouping data reveals patterns

Map Symbology

  • Good symbology means small legends
  • Symbolize by relationship
  • Symbolize by resemblance
  • Symbolize by convention
  • Visual Variables
    • Shape
    • Size
    • Color hue
    • Color value
    • Color intensity
    • Texture

Type on maps

  • Limit font-family to 1 or 2 per map
  • Avoid decorative fonts
  • Use styles changes to break fonts into multiple classes
    • letter spacing, size, color, bold, italics, & letter case
  • 6pt - 12pt
  • Geographic features: italics
  • Water features: serifs
  • ArcGIS: Use Maplex
  • TypeBrewer website

Colors

  • single color gradient suggests changes in values
  • Diverging scheme suggests diverging values or central value
  • White suggests no data, avoid using as class (remember 0 is a measurement)
  • Color Brewer 2

Map Layout

  • Descriptive title
  • Distribute visual weight
  • Balance does not always mean symmetry
  • Align map elements to invisible grid

ArcMap export to ai format for Illustrator

  • set really high dpi to keep detail (vector, so won't blow up like a raster)
  • anything below raster will be converted to raster
  • Convert markers to fill
  • Update labels to new ai format when opening in AI
  • Arc makes a clipping mask, can't really work with map initially because of this.
    • Release all layers from clipping mask
    • Ungroup things
  • Path/Symplify for smoothing blocky lines

Resources