Cartographic Design

 This week, we explored cartographic design including the design process and Gestalt's principles of organization. Our lab assignment focused on creating a map to display schools in Ward 7 of Washington, DC. We had to focus on the four principles (Visual Hierarchy, Contrast, Figure-Ground Relationship, and Balance) and consider them as we created the design.

I used data provided from UWF to create the map and designed it in ArcGIS Pro. I used the SQL Query to select the neighborhoods I wanted labeled and spent a lot of time playing with the settings on the symbology menus for the various layers. I did convert the Neighborhood names to annotations to adjust their position and even added some of the labels as text in the layout frame, both simple block text as well as curved text for the river. 

To achieve a lot of the principles, I relied on my color choices. I used a simple grey scheme for the basemap, with light colors to represent the other mapped elements including roads, waterways, and parks. I used a pretty classic color scheme for this to keep the map easy to read. I choose bolder colors with a red-blue-green scheme for the schools as this felt thematic for schools - an almost primary color scheme that one might see in an elementary school classroom. The light background and bolder colors for the symbols helped my achieve Visual Hierarchy, contrast, and to some extent, the figure-ground relationship, drawing the viewers eye to the schools and letting the other elements fade into the background. I was able to create balance in the map by adding the most important elements first and then deciding which elements would fit into the available space.