26 replies to this topic

[Walnut]

This map excludes labels of major landmarks and some other finishing touches, but you get the idea.

It shows a neighborhood in Philadelphia and is intended to be a multipurpose reference map for neighborhood planning and conversations about specific sites.

I couldn't figure out how to add the map as an attachment, so I have direct linked it in.

[Martin Gamache]

Looks nice, too bad I can't zoom in to take a closer look.

I do find the cursive, serif font for the river a bit too much and same with the north arrow. You have quite a clean modern look for the rest of the map that those two elements clash.

mg

[BEAVER]

I wouldn't change anything. Really nice looking map. Love the colors.

[benbakelaar]

very stylized, i like it... but that style is not something i am familiar with. i'm surprised that city planners would want/request such a stylized view, vs. a more technical style? or were the specs up to you?

[edit: i'm not a professional cartographer, i'm just asking out of curiosity]

[MapMedia]

Me likes it a lot. Fairmont Park looks excellent, as does the Art Museum.
The river typeface might go more in the Arial direction, but that's personal pref.
Also, the dark color of the railroads are a bit distracting - look too significant as they catch my eye a lot as
I glance around the map.

Well done!

Looking forward to seeing more of your posts to the gallery.

[CHART]

Great looking map,

I would put the north arrow off the mapped area (e.g. a small north arrow beside the scale bar).
Likewise I find the river font a bit too catchy. Italic yes but maybe sans serif, and a bit smaller.
Maybe, lighten up the railway system...as previously mentionned.

I like the subtle use of the shaded relief in the treed and grass areas. However I don't know how the terrain is at the street level. If it is flat then no problem. When urban (streets) areas are hilly then it is hard to represent hypsometry using a shaded relief. I believe this is a common problem for most street level maps? So bottom line, I would not change it, but I would be curious to know if there are solutions to incorporate a shaded relief in a street network map. It is a dimension that could be useful to end users.

I like the use of the blue tint off 34th st. I would maybe consider something similar in the grayish areas? Not sure because I can't zoom in. Just a last thought.

Title mentions 500k map? 1 : 500 000 ?

Again impressive work. Will look great on a wall.

Regards,

[Walnut]

Thanks, all. I will use your comments to improve the map.

Labels of landmarks will be added to a version of the map (e.g. the Art Museum, Philadelphia Zoo, Fairmount Park, Boathouse Row, Eastern State Penitentiary Museum, Girard College, &c.)

Regarding showing terrain in urban areas, in this case, the urban area is pretty flat compared to the river valley, so it isn't a big issue. But I would be professionally interested in examples from hill cities. I would think a hillshade and contours could be overlain on most maps.

The 500K in the title of the topic refers to the file size of the image, for those for whom that might be an issue because of bandwidth limitations. The original map is 11x17 (1:9000), however, the density of detail will work at 1:3000 or perhaps even lower.

Planners generally create series of maps that show different themes, such as transportation, landmarks, land use, etc. This map is a basemap, meaning an all-purpose reference map without any specific theme. It was created using GIS layers, a little bit of CAD data, and some hand drawn features traced from aerial photos or scanned graphics. GIS layers are listed below. The file was exported as a series of AI files, and the hillshade was exported separately as a TIF for adding to the AI file.

Cheers.



Some of the source layers:
*parks shapefile
*"impervious" coverage shapefile that shows categories of impervious surfaces citywide, such as buildings, sidewalks, etc.
*street centerlines file used for street labels, street classification (the color of the street relates to its functional classification).
*shaded relief from USGS seamless DEM data
*railroads traced from aerial photos in GIS
*Girard college traced from the campus plan and aerials in a graphics program
*trees in the park traced from aerial photos

[Dennis McClendon]

Very handsome. This is the kind of large-scale urban mapping I drool over.

If I had to change something, it would be the river name font. I also might lighten the railroad tracks, and use color instead of a dashed line for the project sites.

I particularly like the three-level street classification scheme.

For many years I gave a seminar at APA conferences on "how to make better maps." City planning is a field where a lot of poorly designed maps get displayed. I would put this in the planning map hall of fame.

[natcase]

Ditto Dennis on the drool factor. Lovely image of an interesting area.

Are you adding in transit layers?

Does this mean Philly GIS base data is out for public release/sale? I did a project 5 or 6 years ago where we ended up scanning and tracing ancient paper sectional maps, and there was no buildign level available. I was able to get a grudging 1-way map out of the city as a GIS printout...

[Derek Tonn]

Nice work!

Other than my usual soap-box comment about avoiding the use of .jpg for drawn web graphics (can get that identical graphic about 20 percent smaller just moving to 8-bit .png), , about the only thing that looks like it could be improved are the "North" indicator (kind of gets lost and/or looks a bit out of place with the rest of the piece) or that HEAVY serif font on the waterway. Other than that, however, this looks like an excellent piece of design work!

If you REALLY want to knock their socks off though, what about some type of small inset that shows that neighborhood's location within Philadelphia....just to give people who may not be as familiar with the particular area a bit more visual reference? That's probably outside the scope of the project, but that would seem to be a nice addition if it is going to have a broad viewership from not just the "local" residents and institutions.

Hope that helps!

Derek

[Matthew Hampton]

Very well bumped.

I could add more praise b/c this is a very nice peice. I especially like the roof treatment for the bldg at the end of Ben Frank Pky.

I would like to see the railroad simplified. All those spur tracks get distracting esp. when they cross the river.

What is making those funny circular overlays on top of the veg near 33rd and the railroad?

I love the color scheme.

[MapMedia]

What's the catch phrase going around? Ridding the world of bad maps, one map at a time?

Well, I came across this map of the Fairmont, Phila neighborhood, and wow, what a great improvement!

Fairmont Neighborhood Planning Map

[CHART]

What's the catch phrase going around? Ridding the world of bad maps, one map at a time?

Well, I came across this map of the Fairmont, Phila neighborhood, and wow, what a great improvement!

Fairmont Neighborhood Planning Map

Ouch ... good thing mister Walnut? came around....to fix things up.

[benbakelaar]

What's the catch phrase going around? Ridding the world of bad maps, one map at a time?

Well, I came across this map of the Fairmont, Phila neighborhood, and wow, what a great improvement!

Fairmont Neighborhood Planning Map

Well exactly what is bad about this map? I agree it is ugly. And it's not colored. But, for instance, if you were using it to quickly identify large parcels, it seems fairly clear and straightforward. I'm just trying to get a handle on what people use to judge a bad map vs. a good map vs. a useful map. I'm thinking one of the following comments may be that there isn't enough contrast in the map? Everything is towards the middle/dark end of the gray spectrum?

[MapMedia]

It was a pity there wasn't a 'tongue-in-cheek' emoticon at the time I posted, so this will have to do