This week's lab was an exercise in the five principles of map design and the typographical capabilites of ArcGIS Pro. These principles are visual contrast, legibility, figure-ground organization, hierarchical organization, and balance. ArcGIS offers many different options for maniuplating typography and the appearance of features. When these manipulations adhere to the requisite design principles, maps achieve their optimal communicative captabilties.
In one of the exercises, we required to prepare a map for the city of Austin, Texas hightling the locations of golf courses and recreation centers for potential use in tourism. We were provided with a rough draft of the map, hydrological polylines, county polygons, a csv spreadsheet of coordinate locations for recreation centers, and road tracts. It was our task to organize this into a map which clearly communicates the location of the recreation centers and golf courses.
This was ultimately an exercise in Gestalt. These features would need to be positioned in the figure ground in a manner that represented their visual heirarchy. The order from most important feature to least important feature is: recreation centers, golf courses, highways, water features, and the county.
Another of the labs was an exercise in typography. We were tasked with manually adjusting the properties of fonts to make them reside properly in the hierarchy of their representative feature. This ranges from adjusting size, color, spacing, form, and adornments such as halos and shadows.
In one of the exercises, we required to prepare a map for the city of Austin, Texas hightling the locations of golf courses and recreation centers for potential use in tourism. We were provided with a rough draft of the map, hydrological polylines, county polygons, a csv spreadsheet of coordinate locations for recreation centers, and road tracts. It was our task to organize this into a map which clearly communicates the location of the recreation centers and golf courses.
This was ultimately an exercise in Gestalt. These features would need to be positioned in the figure ground in a manner that represented their visual heirarchy. The order from most important feature to least important feature is: recreation centers, golf courses, highways, water features, and the county.
The county background was given a light sand color to get a pleasing yet somewaht neurtral base. Water features were colored blue; stacking them on the county background in terms of hierarchy.
I eleiminated all but the main highways and state roads and ascribed them a warm yet relatively prominent red/orange. This concrasted against the soft sand background to put it towards the foreground. Choosing this color was to direct attention to the arteries of the county as this is informative content for tourists. The golf courses were designated the color green to put it closer in the figure ground than the water features and the background.
Assigning these colors presented good visual contrast which ultimately composes all subsequent principles.
Assigning these colors presented good visual contrast which ultimately composes all subsequent principles.
To stand out on top of all of these featueres illustrating its prominence in the visual heirarchy. I assigned the recreation centers a small building symbol in black and white. Choosing these shades created a leap into the foreground ladning it at its rightful place at the top of the visual heirarchy.
Clipping all of the roadways except the more prominent ones made the map more legibile by eliminating a tremendous amount of clutter. At the displayed scale, space between the lines of the road tracks was difficult to distinguish, so their elimination allowed the map to 'breathe.'
Once again addressing figure-ground. The choice of negative space draws the eye to the map itself. ti requires a shade as lgiht as white because our map is light in hue and soft in chromatic display.
Once again addressing figure-ground. The choice of negative space draws the eye to the map itself. ti requires a shade as lgiht as white because our map is light in hue and soft in chromatic display.
Placing the legend and source informatoin at the bottom of the of the page balanced out the title at the top and the neatline containing the map acts as our figurative fulcrum.
We were given the basic features for the city of San Fracisco, California and its surrounding area. A list of general features, water features, park names, landmarks, and topgraphic features was privded and we were required to apply the appropriate typography.
Here is an excerpt from my informal lab report on how I worked on developing this typography:
Water features: My favorite font for water features will always be Constantia. This may be due to my prolonged use of the font in my work with GIS as it happens to be the font of choice for the recommended water features selections in the text drop-down box. However, this time I did it without the use of this recommendations.
I chose this font and set the spacing, as per our book, at 10%. I changed the hue to an off blue which resides nicely on top of the blue water background fill. I forwent any halo effect as it made the nomenclature too pronounced in the figure ground. For the Pacific Ocean I did use a spacing of 75% which is what is often recommended by ArcGIS. I do not think I can improve on this recommendation. I settled for a 12 pt. font for the smaller water features.
General Features: For this one, I used the Arial font in 12 pt. type. As per our reading, I set the halo to .5 pt. in size and found the spacing to be too constricted. I increased the spacing to 20% between the letters and set the halo to 1 pt. and much preferred the result. I then set the font to bold and centered to be more pronounced in its figure ground. As for their color, I chose a dark grey to maintain hierarchy. For San Francisco, I selected a 22 pt. font as it is the focal and major city of the map. For teh Marin Peninsula, since this is a land form, I went with dark gray Arial font, 12 pt., and did simple Italics. This differentiated this region from the typography of population centers like Sausalito and Treasure Island. I repeated the same procedure for Angel Island.
Topographic Features: For this selectiuon, I used similar settings as the general features. Arial Bold for consistency, 1 pt. white halo, and switched the color from Black to the next lighter option provided in the ready-to-use color palette. Russian Hill and Nob Hill, though originally topographic features, are now neighborhoods. To differentiate for Twin Peaks and the San Miguel Hills, I used the same typography as the parks. Though Twin Peaks and the San Miguel Hills are topographic features, they are also parks. Upon investigating via Google maps, these are not some sprawling mountain ranges but old mining hills which are now parks, therefore, I kept the same typography.
Park Names: For consistency's sake, I used a non-bold arial font in 10pt. These areas are less of a focal point and therefore reside further down in the hierarchy. As for hue I selected a darker green with a light green 1pt halo to create a contrast against the customized green backgrop of the parks. This prevented the typography from leaping into the foreground and avoids drawing too much attention to this area.
Landmarks: The Golden Gate Bridge was a little tricky. I went with a non-bold Arial 10 pt. font with a .5 pt. white halo. The color of the font was a medium gray.
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