19 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Working on a set of 3 maps, all b/w, of several parts of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The maps are to be used in a book on exploration in these regions (the tales of the great explorers have always interested me, so that's a nice added bonus). I like the challenge of working in greyscale for a change, so I'm really glad I landed this project.

Here's a first look at the draft of the first map. It's still fairly rough as the client and I haven't really talked much about the content yet, so I've kept it at "general reference" for now.

 01_Falklands_v01.png   67.2K   199 downloads

Comments are of course welcome. The font, in case anybody is wondering, is Anivers. Bought it a year and a half ago and always intended to use it on a project, this is the first time and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks.

[rudy]

Only one comment - some of the smaller islands seem to get lost against the grey ocean. I would assume you'd want them to stand out a bit more. Like the font.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Only one comment - some of the smaller islands seem to get lost against the grey ocean. I would assume you'd want them to stand out a bit more. Like the font.

That is my concern as well, especially with the South Shetland Islands, as they are probably of importance to the book. I think I'll draw them a bit bigger.

Another thing I'm trying to find a good solution for is the -50^o label on the left side (and to a lesser degree the -70^o on the right side). It's right on top of a bunch of islands and fjords, which is not helping its legibility. I've already put a small halo around it but I'm not sure whether it's enough.

[EOSGIS]

Hello Hans,
This is just a matter of taste, but... When I have maps with such a clear central meridian... I break the rule of placing the latitude labels in the margins and I place them just in the meridian...
I use this specially with these projections with "azimutal" aspects...
best regards

[ravells]

It looks lovely. Really crisp and I love the font.

Do you need to have two sets of latitude labels on the left and right? You could just get away with having them on the right (reduce clutter and eliminate the 50 problem at the same time) as the map is thin so the eye can easily trace them? Unless it's some sort of convention?

[razornole]

That is crisp and clean, all three shades of grey work well together.

Is an ice sheet a water feature, i.e. italics? I don't know I have never mapped one.

Is there a specific reason why you placed so much visual hierarchy on the graticules. Aside from the text they dominate the map. I think a dark grey a shade or two lighter would help tremendously. Same could be said about the text. I would also play around with putting a light grey over the land so they recede more but are still visible.

Nit-picky, I would scoot South Georgia to the left just a tad so it doesn't clip or break the graticule line.

kru

[Charles Syrett]

Hans, you really do need to tell us what that font is. It's a little like Meta, a little like Dax....I even screenshotted one of the names and sent it to What The Font, but even it couldn't nail this one....

Charles Syrett
Map Graphics
http://www.mapgraphics.com

Edit: Hans did identify it as Anivers, below the map in his first post. Guess I got stuck on the map itself!

[Hans van der Maarel]

Is an ice sheet a water feature, i.e. italics? I don't know I have never mapped one.

Interesting point. It's obviously frozen water, but for all intents and purposes, it acts like solid ground over there.

EOSGIS, what do you mean by placing them "just inside the meridian"?

[EOSGIS]

Escuse me , I havent used the correct word.. I mean "over" the central meridian. The 50º longitide one. Not in the sides of the map. If the labels in the center dont interfere with any other information in the map.

Is an ice sheet a water feature, i.e. italics? I don't know I have never mapped one.

Interesting point. It's obviously frozen water, but for all intents and purposes, it acts like solid ground over there.

EOSGIS, what do you mean by placing them "just inside the meridian"?

[Adam Wilbert]

I like the map quite a bit. Super clean start, ready for the client's scribbles! I also checked out Anivers; the whimsical asterisk in the face is especially great. Nice find!

One typographical suggestion is to remove the space between the lat/long and the degree symbol. I was going to simply suggest a little kerning, but then took a quick peek at Wikipedia (cause wikipedia is always correct, right?) and they suggest that degrees of arc are typeset with no space at all as opposed to degrees of temperature which may or may not have a space depending on the style guidelines for the publication.

[Martin Gamache]

Hans,

A few observations:

1.I would label Antarctic Peninsula rather than Palmer Land (or both)
2. Atlantic Ocean (and/or Southern Ocean depending on policy)labels
3. Move Falkland Island Label to top right of feature
4. Adjust Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego labels to be less ambiguous
5.South Shetland and South Orkney are hard to see, not enough figure ground contrast. Might be worth putting a bounding polygon with a dotted line around S. Shetland Islands.
6. Longitude labels at the bottom are not consistent and would be best left off IMO. Top labels are sufficient.
7. Alexander Island and South Orkney could benefit from a leader to make less ambiguous
8. Weddell Sea size seems to big to me. Should be same size as Drake Passage maybe?
9. South America label
10. Antarctic circle label
11. Unless you are looking for historical shoreline you should double check the extent of your peninsula ice shelfs, there has been some change in geometry in the Larsen area on the east side of the Peninsula. USGS has published accurate map in the last 2 years detailing the changes. BAS Antactic database is incorrect and VMAP/DCW is very incorrect. Not sure about N.E.V. USGS has best.

mg

[Hans van der Maarel]

Thanks for all your comments, here's an updated draft in which I've incorporated some of the suggestions made here, as well as the ones my client made.

 01_Falklands_v03.png   76.8K   74 downloads

Getting a little more cluttered now as you can see

[razornole]

I like those graticules a lot better. Still think that the text is a bit large, but I don't know the final size of the map.

I don't really understand the floating boundary line between South Georgia and South Orkney. Not sure if it is needed.

I didn't think that any nation owned territory in Antarctica. There are a lot of claims, and out of those claims I didn't think that the seaward extents were ever delineated. What led you to delineate at -60?

This is most likely still a work in progress, but if not I would work South Atlantic Ocean so it didn't cross any graticules. There is plenty of space for it.

Could you rotate Drakes Passage so it doesn't cross a boundary line.

Looks pretty good,
kru

[AndyM]

I never get to do B&W. Nice looking map.

Couple of nitpicks:

It's not clear to me what's incuded in the Falkland Islands Dependency. Falklands and S Georgia for sure, maybe South Shetlands? Can you tweak the FID label to make it less ambiguous?

To me Antarctic Peninsula looks too loosely letterspaced, could increase the wordspacing to compensate.

Maybe cut the boundary lines back a bit more from "del Fuego" and Drake Passage.

[Hans van der Maarel]

After going back and forth with the client a few times we settled on this design for the first map:

 01_Falklands_v05.png   68.91K   51 downloads

Note that this is going to be in a book that covers exploration in those regions in the late 20th century, so the boundaries of the Falkland Islands Dependencies are showing the historical situation rather than the current (smaller!) British Antarctic Territory.

Razornole, the current Antarctic claims are all limited at -60 degrees according to the Antarctic Treaty.