Typography

This week, we learn all about typography and completed a lab focused on labeling your map. The instructions included several ways to get the labels on the map and then left us with instructions to make a map with specific things labeled.

I used ArcGIS Pro to create the map below using data provided by my professor. To add the labels for the city names, I simply toggled them on and then used the preset label settings for "Populated Place" to begin with. For the Swamps, I used the SQL tool in the label tab to select the items I wanted labeled and the column to draw the labels from. For the Rivers, I turned on the labels, adjusted the settings, and then converted the labels to annotations so I could edit the labels more granularly using the move and edit vertices tool. I'm not great at editing the vertices, but did the best I could to position the labels along the rivers! I think I need to spend a lot more time working with that tool before I master it.

I customized a few things on the map, largely playing with the colors and fonts. I changed the coloring of the counties and Lakes and Swamps. I choose Grey 20% for the counties as they represent background information that is good to have but not the focal point of the map. I choose Sodalite Blue for the rivers as well as the lakes and swamps so all waterways would be represented with the same color that popped on the grey background. 

I changed the fonts for the title, legend, scale bar, and credits to Bookman Old Style, with the credits set as italic. I liked the look of the font and thought a serif was best used in this space. For the map labels, I choose a sans serif font for the labels as the plainer font seemed easier to read. For the cities, I left them Grey 70% with a white halo. For the waterways, I changed the color to Cherry Cola. 

I used circle 1 as my base for the symbols for each city, but adjusted the size down to 8pt and changed the color to Gray 80%. The colors fit with the rest of the scheme I’ve picked out and the smaller point size seemed a little less intense. 

I look forward to continue playing with all the advanced label settings as I continue on my map-making journey.