Typography

The focus of this week's module was typography. This involved learning a lot about the anatomy of a font, when it is appropriate to use certain kinds of fonts, and standard cartographic practices in order to create maps that are easy to understand. The objective of this module was to design a map of Marathon, Florida using the typographic principles we have learned to label designated features in a way that makes sense to the viewer.  I used ArcGIS Pro to create the initial map which was then shared to ArcGIS Online.  Using the ArcGIS Maps extension  I was able to import the map into Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud where most of the cartographic work was performed.

A map of Marathon, Florida showing some key landmarks such as the airport. The vector file for the land was exported from ArcGIS Pro and most of the map creation was done using Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud.

For my map of Marathon, Florida I used the font Trebuchet MS. This sans serif font is not only easy to read but one of the most popular fonts in web design making it familiar to viewers. Additionally, the font family includes bold, italic, and a bold italic style in addition to its regular style giving it versatility.

Varying how type is used creates a visual hierarchy for the map. This is important so that the reader of the map can quickly seek out and determine what is the most important information for them. Most of the visual hierarchy on this map was created using ordinal differences of size. For example, the text used for the cities is larger than the text used for the points of interest.

Due to the narrow nature of the keys themselves, I had to make use of leader lines to point to key features on the map. All the leader lines are the same color and thickness. I made sure to place the leader lines on only a few different angles as not to overly clutter up the map. I also used different symbols for places like the airport or the state park to make them easy for the viewer to seek out.

We were instructed to make three customizations on the map to make it visually our own. One of the customizations I made was a water color paper effect on the blue water background. This was added with the Effect>Artistic>Watercolor. This makes the edges around the map lighter and giving it more visual intrigue. In the same vein, I added a light drop shadow around the islands as well.

Another addition I made was to add in a line for the overseas highway. Without the highway Marathon looks completely disconnected from the rest of Florida which is not accurate to life. I made the road red which is an intuitive standard for roadways. I also added in highway shields so that it is clear which road it is.

My third customization was to place an outer glow behind the text for each of the keys. The keys already are in all uppercase and have a modified kerning so that even though it is the same font family as all the other text on the map they already look distinct. I added the glow to make it even more apparent that they have a different geographic meaning (they indicate the islands) than other text.