This module in Computer Cartography was about cartographic design in ArcPro. I created a map of Washington DC Ward 7 Public Schools using Gestalt's Principles. These include visual hierarchy, figure-ground relationship, contrast, and balance.
This is my map of Washington DC Ward 7's public schools. Overall, I had to adjust and play with ArcPro settings to design a good map. A lot of this was because I am still becoming familiar with how to use ArcPro.
I first looked at all the data we were given from the District of Columbus Open Data and walked through the lab's first steps. I then utilized the tips and tricks in the instructions to create this map. One challenging part of this lab was labeling seven neighborhoods using the SQL query menu. I was able to work through it. One of my discussion leader posts was about how I worked through this issue. My favorite tool introduced in this lab was adding curved text in a layout. This made it very easy to label a river rather than going through the whole process of labeling the layer.
I
implemented Gestalt's Principles in my map in several ways. The first principle I addressed was visual hierarchy by having all the school symbology be bright blue
hues. This draws the user’s eye as the most important thing. I also emphasized
the title and legend, which are some of the most important map elements. I
deemphasized the data source, scale, and North arrow because they are less
important in communicating the map’s message. I did this by decreasing the size
and using neutral colors.
I
achieved contrast in my school symbols by changing the size and hue. I also
varied the line width and color of the roads based on road size (minor roads vs. highways etc.). Ward 7 is also a lighter color which contrasts with the rest of
DC’s color.
I established Gestalt's Principle of figure-ground
relationship by making my AOI the lightest item on the map. The rest of
Washington DC is a different shade of brown, and the background is shades of
grey. These colors make the less important features fade into the background.
The streets are a darker color than the AOI, which makes them appear closer to
the user. The school symbols are a bright color and overlap all other features
making them appear closest to the user.
I achieved a balanced map by
making the mapped area as large as possible. I placed the other map elements in
the remaining room. I aligned the other map element edges to each other, creating
another layer of balance. The title is centered, which gives it good balance. In the end, I think I created a good map, but it took me a while to create it. I hope I get better and faster at cartographic design throughout this class.
Comments
Post a Comment