(1) Map Measles: Too many points at too low of a zoom level. Caused by lack of zoom-level specific coding and/or lack of simplification pre-processing. The solution is to pre-process the data to rid it of the least important points, or to on-the-fly select by attribute (e.g., “population > 500,000”), or on-the-fly binning (e.g., hexagonal binning). Rx: TileMill’s Styling For Zoom Levels tutorial, Hexbin discussion on indiemaps.

(2) Blotchy Skin: Jarring colors interrupt an otherwise flawless complexion. Caused by lack of pre-determined color palette. The solution is to choose a color palette prior to beginning the project and adjust it as needed. Rx: Color Brewer, Cartographer’s Toolkit, Colour Lovers, your own art collection.

(3) Abnormal Cell Walls: Differentiation of polygonal features via varying polygon line-widths and colors, cataclysmically colliding at shared boundaries. Caused by rapid output needs and resulting sloppiness. The solution is to use inner-buffering to provide a continuous color for each polygon while allowing for neighboring polygons to have a different color. Rx: view how it’s done, buffer with QGIS using negative distance.

(4) ADHD: No clear hierarchy of elements, features jumbled in an inappropriate order. Caused by misuse or ignorance of established standards. Also caused by human error and not acquiring critical feedback from outside sources prior to publication. The solution is to be aware of appropriate layer order (e.g., state borders under interstates, park shading under local roads). Rx: study Google Maps, seek critique.

(5) Over Accessorizing: Putting everything on the map that can be put on the map. Caused by GIS analysts, who have a multitude of information at their fingertips, wanting to squeeze every potential drop of wisdom possible out of the data by presenting it all at the same time, resulting in less information transfer rather than more. Also caused by meddling bosses. The solution is to drill down to only the salient details, to separate data into comprehensible segments, to present different maps in different tiles, or to put in a huge effort in getting the data massaged together (e.g., road atlas). Rx: study road atlases, NYTimes map graphics, MIT Senseable City Lab products, winning maps from various map competitions (e.g., NACIS 2012 narrative, first place GISCI 2012).

In landscape architecture, there is a lot of emphasis on the creation of “rooms” or “garden rooms” to split a design into several livable pieces, each ideally with their own function and/or character.

This can be applied to our work as cartographers in the sense of creating separate but unified pieces of a map in order to separate the functions of those pieces but still maintain a contiguity of design aesthetic.

Thus, a section with graphs and charts can be thought of as separate-but-cohesive with a section of metadata, the title section, the supporting information sections, and the map itself. There is still a hierarchy between the sections, but they flow together (sometimes, and often with great effect, into one another), and make up a complete design.

It is rare to be able to put a good looking map together using trite, generalized, advice such as:

• Arrange elements so that they are balanced
• Know your purpose
• Apply coordinated color palettes
• Choose the right size and shape for point data
• Place labels so they are readable
• And so on

Anxious would-be cartographers read advice like this and spend the next minutes (for those easily frustrated) to days (for those with nothing better to do) speculating how they are to be applied to their design.

But the real ticket to learning how to make beautiful and meaningful cartographic works is focusing on the details in other maps that you like. Let’s use this Submarine Cable Map 2013 as an instructional tool.* So, if you were perusing this map for some ideas, you’d take note of:

• The subtle lat/long graticules in light-gray (or brown?) with the major lines emphasized with a more saturated version of the same hue. The graticules are on top of pretty much everything else. They disappear gradually to accommodate the logos in the lower-left.
• The concentric line vignettes emanating from the shores are fairly dense but light enough in color that they don’t compete with the rest of the map. They are blue.
• Only four colors are needed for the country fills: pink, green, brown, and white. Light pink is common on historical maps, which is the look this map is surely aiming for.
• A very simple inner-buffer of darker hue for the countries is effective at achieving a high visual hierarchy for those features. To further enhance the separation between countries a simple black border line is used.
• Country names are all-cap. Smaller countries are sometimes abbreviated. Larger countries are labeled with wide letter spacing often stretching across the whole country.
• Most of the country labels are horizontal.
• There is no separate legend box. The symbols are equated with their meanings right above the explanatory text, separated with just empty space. There is no superfluous box around them.
• Greenland protrudes out of the top of the map, creating a pleasantly discontinuous frame.
• Supporting information takes up the bottom fifth of the overall design, though where needed, the table elements encroach on the map in empty-space (near Australia, for example). Note that the elements don’t have to be squeezed into exactly rectangular areas.
• The colors in the table aren’t the exact same colors from the map, but they coordinate with them.

There are a lot more points that could be made about the submarine cable map, but hopefully the argument now hits home:

perennially examine and note the details in effective maps for application to your own, award-winner-to-be, maps.

*HT Brian Timoney. You’ll have to see the map via the link, as it is “All Rights Reserved”.

This blog often highlights exceptional webmap and print map efforts that are artistic in style and general in subject matter. However inspirational these types of maps might be, the fact remains that most GIS experts are creating maps of a scientific nature meant for a limited audience of technical people who are already familiar with the sometimes esoteric subject matter.

In these types of mapping situations the temptation is to slap the map together and call it a day without regard to placement of map features, scale bars, and the like and certainly without regard to balance. For example, it is tempting to not care about whether the scale bars on the four maps are aligned. Perhaps just scatter them wherever and not bother to change their backgrounds to transparent when overlaying them on dark-colored aerial photos.*

While this may be a permissible amount of laziness when it comes to creating products for your workgroup, the minute these go out into the world they no longer convey the sense of credibility that you’re after. It still astonishes me how many small organizations will include maps like these in slideshows that eventually make their way onto the web. What “worked”** 10 years ago no longer passes muster today.

So let’s take a look at a good example of a scientific map that is well constructed:

From a paper on the Late Cenozoic Uplift of the Amanos Mountains

This map overcomes its black and white constraints with admiral design skill. The patterning is in light gray and the labels and bounding line are in black, forming a foreground/background contrast that is pleasing to the eye. The completely white linear feature in the center provides a natural separation and visual rest area. The architect’s box—map information collected at the bottom of the page—is not cluttered with extra bounding boxes and contains well aligned elements separated by white space. This is a lot of information to get onto one map but this example shows that it is possible.

*Yes, I’m referring to a map I saw this morning but I won’t name names.

**And really, let’s not kid ourselves, these maps never “worked” they just were more common 10 years ago, so you could get away with it more.

The #1 mistake that a new cartographer makes is assuming the map is finished as soon as it somewhat resembles a map. There’s a perfectly good reason for this: if you are new to cartography it will take a lot of effort to get from the initial map request, to finding the data, massaging the data, and placing that data on the map. Along the way there is also a lot of time spent investigating which tools to use (QGIS, ArcGIS, Illustrator, oh my!), setting one of them up, and figuring out how to use it.

So when a map that seems like it addresses the original criteria is finally created, it is tempting to call it a day. However, stopping at this point typically doesn’t result in anything close to adequate. At this time the new mapper must stand back and take a critical look at the map, move elements, delete elements, add elements, ask for feedback from others, consider other colors and fonts and icons, and so on. This is the real design work.

Remember: the map is not done the minute a map-like object is placed on a page. This is where the design phase begins!

Drop shadows are an easily overlooked design technique that can enhance the map by separating certain features such as legends and focal polygons visually from the rest of the map layout.

Map readers may not be immediately cognizant of the drop shadow but it helps their understanding and appreciation for the map just the same. As map makers, we need to be aware of this subtle yet powerful graphic element. We’ll start with some examples of drop shadows on existing maps and map layouts and then proceed to a few notes on how to apply a drop shadow in ArcMap and Illustrator.

From “New Plants on the Way?”, a map accompanying a 2006 article in the New York Times, Slow Start for Nuclear Reactors.
This is a classic drop shadow applied to the United States to separate it from the rest of the infographic.

From “Getting to the Tidal Basin Blossoms”, a map accompanying a 2005 article in the Washington Post, Cherry Blossom Guide.
This drop shadow provides a clear 3D height difference between the land and water.

A portion of the Marymoor Park map by Matt Stevenson, CORE GIS LLC.
Notice the drop shadows underneath the leader lines. They provide an important figure-ground differentiation.

A portion of the Seafloor Map of Hawaii map by Tom Patterson, who maintains shadedrelief.com.
The extremely subtle drop shadow to the bottom and right of the legend adds to the finished look of this exquisite map.

Tools

ARCGIS To create drop shadows in ArcMap, you must have ArcEditor or ArcInfo, and your data needs to be converted to a geodatabase. Use the representation > symbology tab. A tutorial on creating drop shadows this way is available on the ArcGIS resources site. If you only have the ArcView version of ArcMap, you can create a simple rectangular drop shadow for a simple rectangular legend by creating a rectangle graphic and offsetting it from the legend graphic. You can also create a rudimentary drop shadow by converting an irregular polygon feature to a graphic and then symbolizing that graphic via a gradient. Warning: at least in prior versions of Arc (I haven’t tried this in 10), gradient symbology was resource intensive and took a long time to render. Additionally, you can play with concentric buffers whereby each one is slightly lighter in color and more transparent than the last.

ILLUSTRATOR Select an object or an entire layer, then go to effect>stylize>drop shadow and click ok.