17 replies to this topic

[Luca Moiana]

I need to create a recreational/environmental map for a small natural park. I have base layers, land use (mostly forest and agriculture), trails, roads and DEM (although is mostly flat).

Can you suggest examples, tools or guidelines to achieve my goal??

I’m proficient with GIS (ArcGis 9.3 and extensions) but new to design.

Thanks Luca

[ProMapper]

I need to create a recreational/environmental map for a small natural park. I have base layers, land use (mostly forest and agriculture), trails, roads and DEM (although is mostly flat).

Can you suggest examples, tools or guidelines to achieve my goal??

I’m proficient with GIS (ArcGis 9.3 and extensions) but new to design.

Thanks Luca

Hi, you create your map in Arc and then export the map as an Illy .ai to work on it in Illustrator. If you have DEM then you could have a contour layer too with shade effects. Best . . .

[David Medeiros]

I like the look of the National Park series of maps. They can serve as a good example for line, type and fill styles.

Mojave NP PDF:
http://www.nps.gov/m...ad/MOJAmap1.pdf

Tom Patterson is a great resource for information on park map styles as well as using shaded relief:
www.shadedrelief.com

Do you have a draft version of your map you can post to the forum for us to see?

Your best bet is to search around online and find examples of similar maps that you like, look them over and figure out what it is about each that you think works or might work for you and emulate that technique. Bring your results back here and we can help you go over the map in series, making changes and corrections as you develop the project.

[s hubbard]

if you are making this map for trail/park users, try to include all the information that would be important for visitors - like length of trails/junctions, locations of facilities, off-limit areas, bridges, hydro, etc.

it's usually standard to have maps for visitors, then another for administration that shows adjacent property info, emergency access, project areas, etc.

just be careful what info you post on park maps, sometimes you don't want the general public to know everything around them.

also, maps for the visiting public need to be very easy to read, so when in doubt - make details brighter and bigger.
if you can make a hillshade from the DEM, it might work as a background, depends on how you finish it off, being flat and all. you might be able to use the landcover layer as background >>

[David Medeiros]

Park maps do need to be easy to read, but advising “when in doubt - make details brighter and bigger” is a recipe for a stabbing headache if applied without restraint.

I would instead look to the concept of visual hierarchy (which I think is what s hubbard is referring to), understand what features are important and raise them in the hierarchy through various means. One technique is to increase size or apparent brightness, but this can go too far quickly with novice map makers. Other techniques are to vary style, use density instead of brightness and to mute non essential information (creating brighter primary features without actually selecting super bright colors).

[s hubbard]

we can get petty about verbage, but all this person needs in basic, new-to-design assistance.

a stabbing headache? really? wow...those park patrons (99% of which will look at the map for ten seconds) will be disoriented if a label is a shade to light?

we're not talking National Geographic here.

getting critique from park patrons will probably be much more valuable >>

[David Medeiros]

we can get petty about verbage, but all this person needs in basic, new-to-design assistance.

a stabbing headache? really? wow...those park patrons (99% of which will look at the map for ten seconds) will be disoriented if a label is a shade to light?

we're not talking National Geographic here.

getting critique from park patrons will probably be much more valuable >>

I’m sorry, that wasn’t supposed to be an offensive or petty response on my part. I was actually trying to make a humorous comment on the sometimes-outrageous colors common to GIS mapping. More at Luca’s expense than yours and a definite, playful, critique of standard GIS color choices.

But you have to admit, “when in doubt, make it brighter and bigger” is asking for a little clarification. Luca asked about design guidelines so I expanded a bit on your advice. To me, new-to-design assistance usually means more information rather than less. Again it’s not a criticism of you or your work and I don’t think that’s how any will read it. In fact I assumed you meant something similar to what I described in terms of visual hierarchy just phrased in simpler terms.

[Luca Moiana]

Hi guys,
Thanks for all the hint, I'm really just starting, no problem on GIS but huge question mark on design.
According to your suggestions I'll try to put together a map in Arcgis just to visualize what I'm talking about.

I'm having trouble with urbanized areas, the park is surrounded with, and with DEM, really looks badﾅ

Other thing is sw, I read about Ortelius (I'm a MAC user), love the style and the ready to pick color and styles but just discovered doesn't read shp spatial informationﾅtoo badﾅ

Back in a while MAP GUYS!

[pfyfield]

Luca- I am attaching a pdf of cartographic standards that we use in our recreation series. Some of it might be helpful, some probably won't, but it's a good start. We design our maps in Adobe Illustrator.

Attached Files

•  Attachment_C_cartographic_standards.pdf   992.64K   130 downloads

[Laura Miles]

I always find it helpful to look at other's maps...ITMB is a company that makes travel maps, and they have a lot of samples on their website: http://itmb.com/view_map_samples.htm. Try "British Columbia South", "Costa Rica", "Greece"...they contract out their cartography so have many different styles to browse through. Unfortunately some samples are low-res but may give you some general ideas.
Laura

[OdeBode]

Luca- I am attaching a pdf of cartographic standards that we use in our recreation series. Some of it might be helpful, some probably won't, but it's a good start. We design our maps in Adobe Illustrator.

Paul, Thanks so much for including this. I'm in a similar situation as Luca and this is some of the best information on the subject that I've seen.

Luca, I picked up a copy of 'Designed Maps: A Sourcebook for GIS Users' by Cynthia Brewer and found that to have some great examples of styles to draw from for recreation maps.

Cheers, Adam

[s hubbard]

Here's a ESRI LINK for thier Mapping Center ~ it takes you to the blog.
Lots of stuff in there I see people all over these threads looking for >>

[DrJill]

Hi guys,
Thanks for all the hint, I'm really just starting, no problem on GIS but huge question mark on design.
According to your suggestions I'll try to put together a map in Arcgis just to visualize what I'm talking about.

I'm having trouble with urbanized areas, the park is surrounded with, and with DEM, really looks badﾅ

Other thing is sw, I read about Ortelius (I'm a MAC user), love the style and the ready to pick color and styles but just discovered doesn't read shp spatial informationﾅtoo badﾅ

Back in a while MAP GUYS!

Hi Lucas,
There is some great design advice here from some of the best in the industry. Thanks also for checking out Ortelius. Keep the faith - we're working diligently on the Pro edition with geo-referencing and projections, as well as other exciting new features. We now have a newsletter if you'd like to get updates, http://www.mapdiva.c...-to-newsletter/, and of course we'll have announcements out when it is released.
Thanks! Jill

[Luca Moiana]

Hei guys! Thank you a lot for all your hint. Thanks for posting the PDF,Oregon rules!
I did try to watch the crater lake map and reproduce the style and I'll post the results asap but, starting from scratch, here are my questions:
1- What size the paper should be? I don't have much to put on but it should be a hiking foldable map, any standard?
2-What scale do you use? Standard scale or you choose the ratio according to the paper, the area or the details?

I should specify that I'm doing all of this pro bono, in order for the Park to save money on design. So if somebody is willing to help we'll be mercyful and had your name on the map and send you a copy, that's all I can promise. Check website www.parcodelrugareto.it

Regarding Ortelius I didn't mean to trash.it's very neat piece of software and looks very easy to use and to get nice results but starting from GIS data it would be easy for me to import them in. I'll wait for pro version. 
 

[KrafftyMan]

Hey there Luca,

I have been using ESRI's GIS platform for a while now where I created a number of maps. Recently I made the move to Adobe Illustrator and have found that I can produce a nice looking map rather quickly by exporting the data from the GIS to .ai

I wonder if you have experience using Illustrator. If not it may be worth your time to explore this software and go from there.

In the meantime I have to agree that the more maps you look at the more of an idea you will get in terms of how you would like your map to look.

Cheers!