11 replies to this topic

[araki5]

Hi all.
I am working on updating this map for our office. Basically, it's a map that shows the major developments going on in the Elk Grove City limits. I did this all in ARCGIS and will be a stock map for our clients at 42"x66".

Our senior planner(who is an openly biased Autocad guy) remarked to me that the color scheme I have for the different developments is "awful". Now, I happen to still be working on this puppy and won't be finished for a few days, but give me an opinion on my colors(esp. the yellows I have used for the 2 middle ones).

I firmly believe that "art is in the eye of the beholder" but it's either his way (Autocad) or the highway(in other words, no GIS here!)

Thx guys

Attached Files

•  WebEGBasejpg.jpg   282.38K   236 downloads

[Dennis McClendon]

Well, of course we're looking at an RGB translation, but I don't see anything "awful" about it.

Personally, I would pull the green back to be much grayer and lighter. These huge areas of crayon green are distracting, I think. The orange triangle is also too dark, I think. For maps like this I think you want there to be a difference of hue but not a big difference of saturation.

It would be possible to do the overlays as a single ocher or yellow color, by pulling them in a quarter-inch from the actual boundaries. Use a stroke that's half the darkness of the interior ocher. This will give you separation between territories, with the interior ocher and the label showing the area occupied by the territory.

[l.jegou]

Is there a rationale behind the choice of these colors ? A legend ?

I understand the green , but the different orange/rose/yellow colors are only distinctive ?

[araki5]

thx for the replys.

1. I took out the orange colors - not consistent with the other areas. so everything is yellow with minor tweaks of the Hue, basically 1 degree of hue difference between the various specific plan areas.

2. The greens, i lightened up a lot. they are not so dark anymore. I also chose a dark green for the 2 preserves(connoting a "forest") vs. the other greens(just a regular park).

Chicarto, thx for the tips. I am trying to offset the boundary's of the specific plans, but I can't see how. When I go to the the properties edit dialog, I get to the outline part, but don't see how to offset. Any ideas? I'm fairly certain you can offset the outline.

thx again guys.

[Martin Gamache]

You need to dig deep for the offset control.

Make sure you are editing your symbology' outline and then use the outline properties, choose a cartographic line symbol type and go to the line properties tab, there is an offset option there.

[araki5]

Wouldn't you know it, I found it after I posted up.

Anyways, I have a revised sample pic. Throw out your comments, please.

Attached Files

•  ElkGrove2006baseWebEdit2.jpg   278.71K   177 downloads

[Matthew Hampton]

I think this is getting better, but think you could pull the green back even more. In ArcGIS I usually adjust the opacity (Properties-->Display) to accomplish this if I like the hue. I would pull the greens back to 60+%. I think it is important to show the relationship between the open spaces/parks with respect to urbanizing areas (esp. connectivity) but they seem a little too prominant.

It looks like this map is delineating different areas that have distinct comp plans - not necessarily any hierarchical set of relationships. As such the color values (like Dennis said) can all be the same saturation - but I would make them a little more distinct. I don't think a 1deg adjustment is enough unless you can create a much darker outline between adjacent areas. The (toxic) yellow seems a little bright/hot. You might try and see what it looks like using some of the basic ESRI pallette colors (Rose, Beige, Yellow, Blue, Lilac).

[Dennis McClendon]

I think you want to use either the pulled-back boundary OR different colors, not both. If you use the pulled-back boundary, the "Laguna Ridge" ocher looks nicest to me. If you use different colors, you might want a wider array of colors so you're not using different intensities. The palette should still be a restricted part of the color wheel (all warms or all cools) but not necessarily all yellows.

[l.jegou]

The different color levels (many yellows, some greens) are confusing me, i keep searching for a hierarchical meaning to it.

I agree to the comment advicing more pastel colors, less saturated or perhaps more transparent.

[MapMedia]

My suggestion is to fade the green way back to very light shade.

Switch colors for focus areas from yellow/orange to pastel shades of purple. Define boundaries as black (or use darker fill shades and use white boundary) - yes, please use carto boundary with rounded options. Then you might play with transparency of layer to get a softer effect.

Go for it!!

[Pete Y.]

I recommend trying out the Hue/Saturation tool I developed for ArcMap. It's not hard to install, it mimics the functionality of the Photoshop tool, and it makes it very easy to experiment with different layer colors without having to open the layer dialog. You can get it here.

Pete

[Lori Martin]

Pete, your H/S tool is great. I was going to suggest this and saw your post.

Good job!