Map Design

Lecture 2
Model of the course
Using and
making maps
Navigating Map
GIS maps design

Interactive Map
Working with maps layouts Analyzing
spatial data Spatial data
Map
Animations
Spatial data Proximity
infrastructure analysis

Geoprocessing File Spatial Raster Data

Digitizing Geocoding 3D GIS Network

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Map Design and Cartography
Outline

1. Cartography is the science and art of map making

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1. Cartography is the science and art
of map making

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Map making

Choosing a projection
 Geodesy

Choosing map layers
 Problem-solving

Symbolizing and labeling layers
 Map design
 Cartographic principles

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Graphic elements

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Symbolizing feature categories

Codes: Mutually exclusive and exhaustive

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Map Types
2. The type of map determines a lot
about symbolization

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Thematic maps

Have a subject and
geospatial context

For analysis and
problem solving

Have design principles,
but not standards

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Topographic maps

Essential geology
 Land and water
 Built environment
 Land use
 Other characteristics of places and their
relationships

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Sample topographic map

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New York City’s land use colors

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Cadastral maps

Legal boundaries of property ownership
 Land parcel boundaries and corresponding real property records
(including owner data, characteristics of the land and structures,
values, and property taxes)
 Easements for utilities
 Infrastructure such as natural gas, water, sewer, and rain water
runoff pipes

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Sample cadastral map

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3. Use color value, contrast, and graphic
hierarchy for symbolizing maps

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Symbolizing Maps
Color value

The amount of black in a color
 Ranges from 0% (white) to 100% (black)
 The higher color values, the more important the
feature


Contrast
 Opposites have the most contrast

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Bad and good color contrast

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Bad and good graphic hierarchy

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Graphic hierarchy guidelines

Figure
 Assign bright colors such as red, orange, yellow, green, or blue to the most
important graphic elements

Ground
 Assign drab colors, shades of gray, to the graphic elements that provide
orientation or context

Strong boundary
 Place a strong boundary, such as
a black line, around polygons that are
important to increase figure

Cross-hatching
 Use a coarse, heavy cross-hatch or
pattern to make some polygons
important, placing them in figure.
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Bad and good hierarchy 2

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Minimize ink! (Tufte, 2001)

Make every pixel count

 North arrow needed if top of the

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Minimize ink! (Tufte, 2001)

Don’t use a color fill if it’s not needed

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Minimize ink! (Tufte, 2001)

Don’t use “chart junk”

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Colors
4. Color is one of the most effective map
design elements

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Definitions

Hue is the basic color

Monochromatic color scheme is a series of colors of the
same hue with color value from low to high (or vice versa)

Saturation refers to a color scale that ranges from a hue to
gray or black. The closer to black, the more saturated the
color

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Example color scheme

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Color scheme guidelines

Monochromatic and saturated color schemes
 Use either option to color-code most choropleth maps
 Increasing color value in these schemes conveys order of intervals at a glance
 Do not use a random sequence of colors

Dichromatic color scheme
 Use when there is a natural middle-point of an attribute, such as 0 for some
quantities (profits and losses, increases and decreases)
 Use a dichromatic color scale—two monochromatic schemes jointed together
with a low color value in the center and with increasing color value toward
both ends
 Keep negative and positive numeric schemes symmetrical (that is, the same
except for sign as the attribute decreases or increases)

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Sample dichromatic map

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Color scheme guidelines continued…

Importance of high color value
 The darker the color in a monochromatic scheme, the more important the
graphic feature

Differentiation of low color value
 Use more light shades of a hue than dark shades in monochromatic and
saturated scales.

Color spectrum
 Do not use the full color spectrum
 Yellow, in the center of the scale, has the lowest color value.
 Use either half of the spectrum, red to yellow or yellow to violet

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Color wheel
 Opposites or
equally spaced
colors
(complementary
colors) around the
wheel maximize
color contrast
 Adjacent colors
(analogous colors)
show compatibility,
harmony,
association 35
Color wheel application

Analogous colors

Complementary colors
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Numeric Scales
Numerical Scales

Are needed to display quantitative attributes
 Choropleth maps, size-graduated point symbols

Design exhaustive, non-overlapping intervals
 E.g. attribute with range 0 to 100
 Intervals could be 0–20, 20–40, 40–60, 60–80, and 80–100
 Keep number of intervals small, 3 to 7 for vector maps

“Break points” are right sides of intervals
 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 for example above
 Needed by ArcGIS to create numerical scales

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Use a mathematical progression for break points

Equal-width intervals
 Use widths of 2, 5, or 10 times 10 to a power (easy to interpret)
 E.g. 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8; 2, 4, 6, and 8; and 20, 40, 60, and 80

Standard deviations
 If the distribution is bell-shaped
 Can use dichromatic map with intervals centered on the mean

Increasing-width intervals
 Skewed to the right, long-tailed distributions
 Interval widths that double (e.g., 0–5, 5–15, 15–35, and 35–75 have interval
widths of 5, 10, 20, and 40)
 Powers such as 2n or 3n times 10 to a power, for n=0, 1, 2, 3, 4, …; e.g. 2n x 10 is
10, 20, 40, 80, 160

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Break points continued…

Quantiles
 Use sorted data
 E.g., 1st interval of quartiles is lowest 25% of the distribution, 2nd interval is the
next 25% up to the median, the next 25% up from the median, and the
highest 25%
 If there are 5 classes, each interval has 20%, etc.
 Analysts use quantiles because they provide information about the shape of
the distribution, can see long-tailed distribution, uniform distribution

Natural breaks
 Intervals that best group similar values and maximize differences between
classes
 Generally irregular jumps up or down in successive interval widths
 Perhaps good for some natural phenomena
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Process for designing numerical scales

Try equal-width scales for the general public
 Use ArcGIS’s Defined Interval classification and try all three 2, 5, or 10 to some
power
 If none is acceptable, use a more sophisticated design

For analysts, start (maybe end) with quantiles
 Study the histogram and quantile values produced by ArcGIS
 If roughly uniformly distributed, design an equal-width scale
 If roughly bell-shaped, use standard deviations
 If skewed to the right, design an increasing-width scale

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Numerical scale design example 1


Skewed to the right distribution

2n x 100, n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 works well, with break points 100, 200, 400,
800, 1600, 2232
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Numerical scale design example 2


Uniform distribution

5 x 10-1 works well as the interval width with break points 2.5, 3.0, 3.5,
4.0, and 4.30
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Feature Labels
6. Feature labels also have graphic
elements that you can choose
Elements of text that you can vary

Serif fonts (e.g., Times New Roman, Courier New) have finishing
strokes at the top or bottom to guide the eye.
 Good for large font-size labels and blocks of text

Sans serif fonts (e.g., Arial, Verdana) are plain without finishing
strokes
 Good for small-size fonts where finishing strokes are not clearly visible


Font size contributes to graphic hierarchy for text
 The larger the font, the more in figure is the text.

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Elements of text that you can vary continued …

Type style: normal, italics, underline, and bold
 Generally use normal style
 Italics, underline and bold all contribute to figure, with bold adding the most
to figure

Use all upper case sparingly, to increase figure
 IT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING!
 It’s easier to read lower case text

Use black or grays for most labels, with gray sending labels to
ground

Arrangement for point and polygon labels is usually horizontal
 But labels for lines are often curved to follow the lines

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Additional Map Design Guidelines
7. Some additional map design
guidelines

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Guidelines for point schemes

Use simple shapes for point symbols (circles, squares, triangles,
stars, etc.). They make it easier to see patterns.

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Guidelines for point schemes continued …

Use point symbols with outlines to increase figure of
important points


Use size difference exaggeration for size-graduated point
symbols
 The human eye does not differentiate proportional changes in
area well

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Map purpose determines the data for a choropleth
map

Use population counts, or population segment counts of a target
market when studying demand for goods and services
 Population is an input to estimating demand

Use normalized population (population of segment / total
population) for studying population composition
 Percent youth population = (youth population / total population) is an
example

Use population density (e.g., population/square mile) as a measure
of behavior (e.g. spread of disease by contagion)

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Map purpose determines the data for a choropleth
map continued… Population by county in California


An alternative for population
density is a dot density map
(don’t have to design a
numerical scale)
 Each dot represents a number of
persons and ArcGIS places the dots
randomly within each polygon

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Fishnet map

If you have point data for a population, can summarize for any set of
polygons

Consider using ArcGIS to create a fishnet of uniform cell polygons
 Removes polygon size as confounding visual variable, leaving color scheme to
represent the population

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Two categories of audience

Trained Analyst
 Purpose: exploration—identification and diagnosis of spatial
patterns (problems)
 Frequency of use: high and regular
 Geography knowledge: special

General Public
 Purpose: communication or information look-up
 Frequency of use: low and irregular
 Geography knowledge: general

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Design for your audience

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Contrast
Light vs. dark colors
High color “value” (dark color) is perceived as more important

GIS TUTORIAL 1 - 58
Light vs. dark example
Light vs. dark example
Simple Attribute Queries
Simple query criterion (text)
<data attribute> <logical operator> <value>

NatureCod = ‘DRUGS’
Simple query criterion (text)
<data attribute> <logical operator> <value>

NatureCod = ‘DRUGS’
Simple query criterion (text)
<data attribute> <logical operator> <value>

NatureCod = ‘DRUGS’
Simple query criterion (date)
"CALLDATE" >= date '2012-08-01 00:00:00'’
Simple query criterion (date)
"CALLDATE" >= date '2012-08-01 00:00:00'’
Simple query criterion (date)
"CALLDATE" >= date '2012-08-01 00:00:00'’
Simple query criterion (date)
"CALLDATE" >= date '2012-08-01 00:00:00'’
Wildcard criterion (%)
NatureCod LIKE ‘BUR%’
Wildcard criterion
NatureCod LIKE ‘BUR%’
Compound Attribute Queries
Compound query criteria
"NATURE_COD" = 'DRUGS' AND "CALLDATE" >= date '2012-08-01 00:00:00'
Compound query criteria
"NATURE_COD" = 'DRUGS' AND "CALLDATE" >= date '2012-08-01 00:00:00'
Compound attribute queries

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