Notable Features in Florida - Typography Module 2

   

       This map of Florida shows the notable rivers, cities, and wetlands which constitute the state. It is a simple map colored in an earthy yellow and green with large point-symbology to illustrate the county seats throughout the state. 

         The key objectives for this week's assignment was simply to learn how to upload feature classes to our map and subsequently label them. The heavier emphasis was put on labeling and how to manipulate said labels to create a visually appealing map. These labels had to maintain standard typographic and cartographic conventions i.e. water feature labels being in italics and, in the case of rivers, following the vector shape of said river. 

        In regard to map creation, one of the key elements to focus on is cartographic intent. Plainly put, what is the intended use of the map. Due to the simplistic nature of the data supplied, this was clearly going to be a rudimentary overview of key ecological and civil features in the state of Florida. Because of this, I chose to posture my map as though it would be a subset in a textbook, in a travel guide, or in some environmentally contingent infographic where main marshlands, rivers, and population centers were required to be communicated. 

        Using ArcGis Pro, I added the requisite data into my map and, through the use of the symbology function, separated the necessary field of data by its constituent features. For instance, the data that was provided for 'Major Cities' was delineated into two categories: population centers and county seats. For display purposes this allows the ability for each to be designated by a differentiating symbol, however, for the purpose of this map, one can then use these separated categories to distill them into different 'label classes' by utilizing the 'create labels from symbology' function in the 'label class' pane. 

       With each feature appropriately separated by label class, I then manipulated the fonts and sizes to appear legible and in hierarchal Gestalt-based order. When it came time to appropriately label the river features, I had to turn said feature class into an annotated class which allowed me to not only adjust the font, color, and sizing but, through the use of the 'edit vertices' tool, manipulate how the letters were displayed to relatively follow the contour of the rivers. 

        In order to choose the specific features that were to be presented on the map, I used a simple definition query where I was able to pick and choose which features I required from each of the feature classes. This is tremendously simple and was found in the layer properties function of the feature layer. 

        Once the basic necessary functions were performed, I made several (among many) more customizations. The first customization I made to my map was to make the counties feature layer yellow and the Marsh/Swamps an earthy green. Not only do the two colors perform well together due to a somewhat relative similarity. Verdant areas are often communicated with related colors such as green. The differential between the two colors creates a pronounced contrast that is still pleasing to the eye.            

     The second customization is that I represented the point shapefile of the major cities with small courthouses. The default coloration was blue with a large white circle. I found that this conflicted with the blue which I was using for the rivers layer so I changed the courthouse color to a dark brown and shrank the encompassing circle so it would not clutter any of the labeling being used for other features on the map. 

        The third customization I performed was using the edit vertices tool while manipulating the annotations of the rivers feature. This one proved to be rather difficult as, due to using the annotations from the practice portion of the lab where I had not quite figured things out, had to manipulate, color, and adjust the font through the annotation feature which is clumsy and provides less options. Regardless, I had to make the river nomenclature large enough, which I performed through the scaling tool of the annotation edits. Then, in order to make the names relatively follow the direction of the rivers, I clicked the edit vertices feature of the edit tools and adjusted the larger writing to follow the pathway of the river. I then changed the color of the rivers to a light blue dust. I had them illustrated as a pronounced blue but that just seemed too stark of a contrast making the map slightly garish. 

        Another fun adjustment that I made was to change the point feature of the capitol to a golden star. I then adjusted the size of the boundary to add a black outline to the star to make it stand out against the sand colored background.

        Ultimately, this was a rather simple exercise, however, due to my unfamiliarity with the functioning of the annotation feature, it was not without some difficulty. If I were to redo this project with what I know now, it would have been completed far quicker and with less frustration. My issue was that I created my map on top of the practice section of the lab. In this, while figuring out the different aspects of the 'convert annotation' function, I had created multiple annotation label classes which appeared to conflict with each other resulting in a loss of displayed data and performance each time I created a differing annotation layer. Simply plugging in each feature class to the 'convert annotation' tool will nicely create differing feature classes that can be manipulated. Also, having each one under a different output layer prevents this overlap. It took me quite a bit of time to figure this out.