Cartographer's Toolkit

When you hand over the final version of a map, there are two things you can do to prevent the receiver from criticizing it. You know what kind of criticizing I’m talking about. The kind that starts out, “hey, that looks great, could you just change…this…and this…and this…and oh yeah, just rework the whole color scheme, okay…?” The two best things you can do to prevent this kind of treatment is:

1. Make the map completely awesome, and
2. Explain every and all detail including color choices, label placement, etc., and how you came to make those design decisions*.

Preemptive explanations are much more effective than defensive explanations (i.e., after the criticism), and they help to educate the recipient, which they will usually appreciate.

If you are sending the map or link to the finished product via email your best bet is a short introductory “here it is” followed by a long explanation. This is one of the few times when it is acceptable to send an email of this length. However, remember to separate the long explanation from the main body of the email so that if the reader so chooses, they can skip the fine print. Your recipient may be a very busy person and you want to make it clear that the explanatory text is optional reading. If criticism still follows this email you can simply say, “oh yes, I explained that choice in the email, let me walk you through it…”

If, after doing your best at explaining your decisions, they still want changes made you have these choices:

1. Make the changes,
2. Make the changes but remove your name/company name from the product, or
3. Walk away from the project.

I don’t believe I’ve ever had a big enough problem that I can’t feel right about simply making the changes. I always appreciate feedback and am lucky to have some really great clients who I can work with well. But I do know that there are rare occasions when other cartographers have had a draconian client with unalterable garish tastes or a never ending string of changes, and in those cases you will have to put your foot down.

*Note that you can also explain design-decisions as you go. This opens you up to criticism even before you are done, though! Which means that the client may not “get” your overall vision, so tread carefully. With most clients, it works to do a little bit of both. Also note that the scope of the project is important. Small projects may simply need a delivery and explanation at the end while very large projects sometimes require a lot of back and forth with mock-ups, layout choices, and so on.