New Class, New Semester, More Maps - Module 1: Map Design & Typography

 In this Lab, I was tasked with exploring symbology, cartographic tools, and general map design. In total, we were tasked with making five different maps. I really enjoyed this lab because it helped me think creatively about how I want to design my maps in a way that meets the criteria of the five map design principles. In case you don't know what they are, it is visual contrast, legibility, figure-ground organization, hierarchical organization, and balance. When it comes to making maps for my career, visual contrast is sometimes something I struggle with because no matter what color I choose it can still look like the colors aren't contrasting well enough (I promise I'm not color-blind). One of these design principles I want to focus on next is legibility. Legibility is very important for maps, especially for this map:

One key to having a legible map is the typography choices you make. For this map, I used varying font sizes to reflect the importance of some features. For example, Mexico City has a smaller font size compared to the countries being labeled. Another choice I made for typography was the text placement. I made sure to minimize overlap as much as possible by converting my river labels to annotations and manually placing a curved label. Overall, these small choices make the map far more legible than it was with a dynamic label placement.