M3 Lab: Cartographic Design

Module 3: Cartographic Design

For this week's module, we practiced using many design principles to create a map of Ward 7 in Washington, D.C.

One of the design techniques used was visual hierarchy. To incorporate this, I made the primary focus of the map in red hues, to draw the most attention, in scale to get larger with the population, and darker as it progresses through the series of school categories. Other major references to location, such as roads, are also in red and blue. Background items are in desaturated shades of green and blue, as well as white. 

To incorporate contrast into my map, I used high vs low saturation in colors depending on the importance of an item. Sizing important items as well as making some items scale to the population. 

To establish a figure-ground relationship in my map, I set the map's base color as a shade of grey, whereas the color outside of the boundaries of the map is set to a light, desaturated green. Additionally, as there was part of the map outside of the study area, I turned the detailed roads off outside of the study area. 

To incorporate balance into my map, I used most of my availed space to fit the required elements of the map without cluttering the space. Some space was left unused as there were no more elements needed for the map. 

I used very few tools inside of Arc GIS to create this map, but rather I used symbology modifications and legends to present all of my information. 

I encountered several technical difficulties working on this map; first, I had periodic freezes where the only thing I could do was save and restart my system. This first issue pushed my work much later in the week than intended. And second, I had a very bad-timed full freeze where I was unable to save during the last day working on this, and between trying to fix the freeze and recover my lost work, I ended up running out of time and turning this assignment in late.