This image shows the locations of schools in Ward 7 of Washington, D.C. Our lab exercise this week tasked us with the utilization of Gestalt Principles of design in order to experiment with and create a map layout that clearly defined school locations within their region of Washington D.C.'s 7th Ward.
The data that was presented contained a multitude of feature classes illustrating school locations, roads from small city streets to interstates, various water features, and area parks.
The first Gestalt principle to utilize is the practice of selective exclusion in order to remove clutter from the map and eliminate any distracting information. In this image, I removed all but the major D.C. streets including their nomenclature. The larger state roads, highways, and interstates remained on the map but were represented by a muted color. Though important for orienting the viewer, they are not a subject that the map intends on making an area of focus. This exercises the Gestalt principle of de-emphasizing base information. The lack of contrast with these larger roads (as well as the smaller city streets) pushes the feature area and, most importantly, the schools to the forefront.
Next, it was imperative to bring the area of focus into the foreground, a principle deemed figure-ground organization. This procedure operates hand-in-hand with contrast as we use contrasting color values and shades to emphasize focal regions. Here, a white focal area contrasting with a dull gray remainder of the city allows the area of Ward 7 to properly stand out. It was an interesting experiment, one I discovered had interesting visual implications as I screened colors with similar hues but slightly varying shades. For instance, I initially was inclined to color the area a light tan, however, it seemed to communicate that the constitution of the ground was dirt or sand. I encountered similar instances where green seemed to communicate verdant vegetation and blue water. These are environmentally indoctrinated associations that seem to be commonly shared across mankind. It seemed to conflict with the cement laden, steel entwined city visage. Thusly, I settled on shades of gray.
The next operating principle that was utilized, and without hesitation the most commonly applied, was the use of contrast. Outside of the previously described applications, it's primary role was in the dark circles around the school symbols and their coloration. Upon a white background, this black border and school coloration enhanced the visual effect of the symbology. It is rather difficult to see it in its true form in the provided upload, but viewed in it's entirety as a solitary .png it is effective.
Lastly, all of these elements were combined to capture the final Gestalt principle of balance. Placement of items such as the title, legend, scale bar, inset map, and map needed to be relatively symmetric to convey balanced weight to the images in the frame. The use of black 'neatlines' and borders with white backgrounds for notable items aided in constituting the appropriate visual hierarchy.
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