15 replies to this topic

[Chris J]

Greetings all!

I've been lurking on CartoTalk for awhile now and I really appreciate and respect the community here. I just returned from the ESRI UC and have been inspired to post a map for review.

The attached screen shots are from a reference wall map (42''X52'') designed for the public that currently use or may potentially visit Colorado Division of Wildlife properties. While not shown yet, I can see adding Game Management Units to future versions (GMU's are how hunting licenses are issued).

I'm fairly happy with the look of the map, but the nagging question I have is, "Is it good enough to be mass produced and sold?"

Any comments would be great.

Cheers!
Chris Johnson
Colorado Division of Wildlife

Attached Files

•  samp72dpi_full.jpg   259.4K   378 downloads
•  samp150dpi_zoom.jpg   712.34K   312 downloads

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hi Chris, and welcome to Cartotalk!

That's a very impressive map, but I'd really like to see an even more detailed bit of it, if that's possible?

[Chris J]

Hi Chris, and welcome to Cartotalk!

That's a very impressive map, but I'd really like to see an even more detailed bit of it, if that's possible?

Hans,

Thanks. Attached is a 300dpi portion. I hope this helps.

Attached Files

•  samp300pi_zoom.jpg   734.03K   282 downloads

[BEAVER]

I think the yellow for cities is little too bright and the National Parks are too dark IMHO.

[A. Fenix]

Welcome Chris! Beautiful map. I especially love the backdrop of terrain. Did you create it, or is it from another source? As for the other layers, I'd have to agree with Beaver that the yellow is too bright. It draws the readers eyes to all the urban areas first, which I don't think is the maps intention. It also looks like the annotation could use a little more work (annotation never seems to be done though), but otherwise quite striking at first glance I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work, thanks for sharing!

[razornole]

Hey Chris,

Just my thought, but why show the terrain of the surrounding and not the wmas/smas. Don't know if you tried a solid border with an opacity fill? Not sure what the orange swmas represents (i.e. Roaring Fork). From what I can tell it is not on your legend. Would be nice to see a detailed version of the legend, since they help to clear up a lot of confusion. An elevation ramp might be useful as well. You might want to consider rotating it a little more counter-clockwise it seems off just a hair.
I think that this a very nice looking map.

kru

[Chris J]

I had to pick what to show in detail and the legend didn't make it to CartoTalk. Just to clarify, the yellow are State Wildlife Areas (property managed by my agency) and the focus of the map. Urban areas are defined with a point and very light gray local roads. That being said, the yellow is pretty bright

[Claude]

nice map! ditto about the yellow and i didn't understand some of the abbreviations but maybe if i could read the legend i would understand

[GISRox]

Chris - Nice map and one that I know Colorado Outdoorsman will use. Other than the yellow, which has been previously mentioned, I think you have a winner.

[Dale Sanderson]

I'm fairly happy with the look of the map, but the nagging question I have is, "Is it good enough to be mass produced and sold?" Any comments would be great.

Hi Chris, from a fellow-Front-Ranger. I disagree with previous comments about the yellow being too bright. As you've noted, on this map the yellow does not represent urban areas - it represents wildlife areas, which is precisely what the map intends to emphasize. However, I do agree with the comment that it would be nice for the yellow areas to have a transparent fill, so that the terrain would show through (similar to what you have already done with the National Parks). Once you do that, though, the yellow may no longer be bright enough, and you may have to choose another color. (And I can't quite tell from your samples whether the blue areas are transparent or not - those are state lands, correct?)

I like the colorization of the shaded relief. Without being distracting, it gives a good feel for which regions of the state are high mountain ridges, which areas are forested, and which are not. The only nitpick I have is the use of "default" state highway symbols (white circle in a black square). Those look like Iowa state highway markers, but certainly not what you'd actually see posted on the roads in Colorado. In this case, I don't know that you'd want to go with a facsimile of a Colorado state highway shield (might be too distracting). Since your US route markers are simple and unassuming, for the state routes I'd suggest a simple white rectangle with black highway numbers.

It's a beautiful map. But honestly, I'm not sure selling it would be the way to go. It does a good job providing a quick overview of where the wildlife areas are located, but at this scale it's really not detailed enough for anything beyond "how to get there". I wonder if you could get the DOW to print it and give it away to interested users. And maybe it could include information on where to get more detailed maps of each wildlife area. Now those I can see people being willing to pay for.

[François Goulet]

Hi Chris, from a fellow-Front-Ranger. I disagree with previous comments about the yellow being too bright. As you've noted, on this map the yellow does not represent urban areas - it represents wildlife areas, which is precisely what the map intends to emphasize.

First of all, very nice map!

I think that if the symbology is mistaken for something else it's a sign that they're something wrong with it. We're kind of used to see urban areas in yellow and that's why there's been misinterpretation. It's maybe not a universal convention, but even though yellow could be the perfect color to emphasize the feature on the map, to prevent the misinterpretation, I would, imho, change the color.

Intelligibility should come before creativity... Ok, I'm a little stubborn so I sometimes (often? ) try everything I can to keep my preferred design, but if the message could be missed, it not worth it.

Having said that, I still really love the map!

[ELeFevre]

Hey Chris,
I really don't see any reason why you couldn't offer this map to the public. It's a great map.

The yellow polygons do look urban, but I don't find it confusing because I live Colorado and I understand what the map is showing. I guess the real question is: would out-of-state or out-of-country hunters find it confusing? More specifically, would a Texan from Dallas (probably a real estate developer or lawyer) get confused, possibly lost, shoot someone's horse because of it?

I'd probably take the safe route and test some other solutions just to see where it gets you. Nice map! Keep us posted on the progress. Erin

[Dennis McClendon]

Digital printing can change our ideas of what it means to "sell" a map publicly. So plots could be done as people order the map off a website, and you could have six done for the Mapsco store in Denver to stock.

[Matthew Hampton]

I love the map Chris and would like to selfishly plot a copy for myself.

Although it is hard to tell from the nice versions you have posted - I think your color for State Parks/Forests (and what I think is BLM, for that matter) look a bit like water features and your water features are a bit too (radioactive) blue for my eyes.

They water-fill stands nearly as much as the bright yellow.

I think I would be inclined to experiment with a greenish-transparent tints for public lands. I am curious to see a close-up of your legend to help understand what the other poly-fills represent.

I really like the hypsometric tint you used!

[Josh]

I had to pick what to show in detail and the legend didn't make it to CartoTalk. Just to clarify, the yellow are State Wildlife Areas (property managed by my agency) and the focus of the map. Urban areas are defined with a point and very light gray local roads. That being said, the yellow is pretty bright

Great map! I had to use a standard yellow for map recently, but made it a little less bold by applying a transparency....might help

I love the shaded relief you used. What data and program you used to make it?

Attached Files

•  2_1.jpg   43.56K   51 downloads