Cartographic Design

Tips and Tricks

Ben Hickson

January 24, 2018

Tips

1. Keep your purpose in mind

Reference Map - Atlas
Thematic Map - Demographics
Special Purpose Map - Building Footprints

2. Pick the right projection

Don't use WGS 84 or Mercator unless you are actually looking at the entire world, and even then...
For smaller extents, there is a better, more accurate projection
- Area? Equal Area
- Distance? Equiditant
- Direction? Azimuthal or Conformal

https://thetruesize.com

http://www.cartogrammar.com/blog

4. Use neat lines to delineate major features

Draws out contrast

5. Use appropriate symbology

E.g. At regional, national, or continental scales, cities should be identified as points

6. Don't settle for standard pastels

Anyone who has made a map before will recognize that standard green and yellow

7. Consider Color

Chloropleth or Isopleth? Political or Environmental?
Quantitative or Continuous
- Quantitative: this or this
- Continuous: a range of values (e.g. 0 to 100)
Make sure your colors make intuitive sense

Chloropleth

Use if you have distinctive boundaries (watersheds, counties, etc)
Not great for total values, but good for ratios (e.g. per)
If you do have a range of data (e.g. 0-100) and you don’t want a gradient, don’t use more than 8 bins
Can the reader differentiate between bins?

Source: http://www.caliper.com/featured-maps/maptitude-brexit-map.jpg

Isopleth

Ideal for continuous data like elevation or rainfall
Good for gradually changing data

Source: https://i0.wp.com/www.harappadna.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Harrapa-SouthAsia-Participant-Map-C1-1.jpg

8. Don't render too many features

Keep clutter down

Unless clutter (density) is the point

9. Obscure your basemap

Basemaps are there for general context, they shouldn’t be your map.
- Use an semi-transparent overlay or alter layer saturation levels to obscure content

10. Beware of too many labels

They'll clutter up the map and make it illegible
How big will the map be?
- Printed or Online?

11. Pay attention to your labels

Use Maplex Engine in ArcMap
Text halo’s are often a good idea
Orientation is important – labels for rivers typically follow the river
Do you need duplicates? How often?

12. Make sure your legend or your map styles identify all features

Don't leave the reader guessing

13. Your legend doesn't

make itself

Got big numbers? Use commas
Don’t use your field names as your feature names in your legend
Is it big enough? Don’t make me squint
Does it really need a title?

14. Always include a scale bar

If your reader is unfamiliar with area, they need to know what they're looking at

15. Always include a north arrow

Orient your page toward the top of the earth unless you’re creating a map for navigation, then use true north
If you’re not using the top of your page as north, make the north arrow conspicuous

16. Include a date

In the age of the internet, this is especially imporant

17. Include metadata

Got a basemap? Where did your data come from?
Sources are important

18. Consider your typeface

Avoid Comic Sans and Arial if you want it to look like you tried

19. Check it out in grayscale

Remember who your map is for. If it’s going to be printed or photocopied and distributed widely, check to make sure that your design choices aren’t entirely color dependent