Think about your audience when designing your maps. For example, at the California Academy of Sciences yesterday I noticed that the maps in the rainforest exhibit were both extremely simple and extremely effective. The rainforest exhibit is comprised of several stories wherein each represents typical species you would find in each of three or four country’s rainforests (Borneo, Costa Rica, for example). Each level had a map at the beginning to show you where, for example, Borneo is.
The maps are just landmasses of the earth and a simple square around the general region. There wasn’t a need for labeling of major countries or hillshading or aerial photography or anything that would take away from the very simple message. Now, there are a lot of times when there is A LOT more needed on a map than landmasses and a locator box, but the designer adroitly regarded anything other than the basics to be superfluous and, quite likely, distracting from the exhibits.
Now, mind you, these maps are not pieces of art that someone’s going to take a picture of themselves next to. But then again, I noticed they were used quite a bit for actual spatial-knowledge purposes!
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