5 replies to this topic

[David Medeiros]

I haven't had anything stylistically new enough lately to warrant posting, and this is more or less in the same vein as much of my previous work but I thought I'd put it up anyway. It's a map of the 1995 Camel Trophy route through portions of Central America. It accompanies a series of online articles about the event here.

Like most work for magazines or blogs its a quick turnaround so there's little time to reach perfection <- read, take it easy on me Personally I would have liked to add a few geographic feature labels, put a faint grid in the ocean and maybe play with the relief image a little more. Enjoy!

Attached Files

•  Camel_Trophy_2011V3.jpg   602.33K   124 downloads

[razornole]

Looks great David,

I like this series so much better now that you have gotten rid of the blue lines for roads.

What was your reasoning behind a serif font for countries and sans for cities?

Have you ever tried to neutralize your inset? The black in white dominate and really distract, i.e. I find my eye drawn to your inset rather then the map. I always try to hide mine as much as possible. I include in case it is needed, but leave it hidden in case you don't. Another thing Iwould do if I had two prominent element I would justify them. In this case your title and inset.

Thanks for posting something,
kru

[David Medeiros]

Looks great David,

I like this series so much better now that you have gotten rid of the blue lines for roads.

What was your reasoning behind a serif font for countries and sans for cities?

Have you ever tried to neutralize your inset? The black in white dominate and really distract, i.e. I find my eye drawn to your inset rather then the map. I always try to hide mine as much as possible. I include in case it is needed, but leave it hidden in case you don't. Another thing Iwould do if I had two prominent element I would justify them. In this case your title and inset.

Thanks for posting something,
kru

You're right on both count's on the inset and title graphic. I'm a stickler for symmetry on framed elements and completely missed the misalignment. The full black is... a little heavy, I would normally do this 80% - 90% depending on size. This map is not specifically for the mag but a related website. I used the magazine map template as a guide and they require full black locator as well as the font choice for nation labels. I don't mind the labels despite the break with convention. I do wish I had spread some of the labels out more though.

It's funny, I tell every new GIS user or cartographer I interact with to make sure they seek out peer review (and contribute to review as well), that it's the best way to learn and yet for the past few maps I haven't, mostly because I thought I was covering old territory. But even small departures from the template need scrutiny!

[redbeard]

I agree with the inset and the camel trophy title. I think the title logo could have been a little smaller, would make it easier on the eyes, as the colors for the map are really nice (easy to look at too). What you said about spreading the labels out - agree too, it's fairly crowded there (but it is certainly usable). Still much better than Bing maps over europe at certain zoom levels (talk about crowded annotation!).

One thing that throws me a little is the single road name. Are the other parts not roads? Is the entire route the same road? If the road was mentioned in the article (I didnt see it) then I could see using it.

One thing that might be useful is some natural feature names (you have a couple - lake, sea) - I'm thinking river name, mountain or valley). Though it's not really a loss without them. Just a thought as your audience tends to be attracted to people-less places (I frequent the forums there).

And your roads look nicer being not blue....You could even use a more brownish shade (they are dirt roads for the most part right?) but they look quite good as it is.

[David Medeiros]

One thing that throws me a little is the single road name. Are the other parts not roads? Is the entire route the same road? If the road was mentioned in the article (I didnt see it) then I could see using it.

And your roads look nicer being not blue....You could even use a more brownish shade (they are dirt roads for the most part right?) but they look quite good as it is.

The two road labels are from the article, I think they mention at least Cortez Rd in part 1. There will be a follow up article later. I'm not sure, but my guess is that a large portion of the route is on nameless track.

The blue lines in this map are rivers, no roads other than the route are shown. There may be some confusion between this and the Overland Journal map styles where there used to be a blue route line used before I took over the maps. That's been changed to an olive green which stands out better on the brown/sepia tone relief images. I'd prefer the dark red I use on these other maps but I think the mag wants to keep the maps earth toned.

[redbeard]

Oops, I didn't notice cortez rd hiding there. I was thinking brownish as that has been used elsewhere, but the dark red looks quite nice. It does help it stand out, as that is the subject of the article.

The two road labels are from the article, I think they mention at least Cortez Rd in part 1. There will be a follow up article later. I'm not sure, but my guess is that a large portion of the route is on nameless track.

The blue lines in this map are rivers, no roads other than the route are shown. There may be some confusion between this and the Overland Journal map styles where there used to be a blue route line used before I took over the maps. That's been changed to an olive green which stands out better on the brown/sepia tone relief images. I'd prefer the dark red I use on these other maps but I think the mag wants to keep the maps earth toned.