Week 2: Cartography

This map shows the location of the main campus of UWF, in addition to two major cities and the interstate highways and major rivers in Escambia County. In the inset, Escambia County's location is shown within Florida. 


In this week's lab, we learned how to apply cartographic principles and design in ArcGIS Pro by creating a map of the UWF campus and other important features in Escambia County. There were quite a lot of steps that went into designing a map that looks so simple. One of the first steps was looking through all the metadata to find out who published each dataset and when. There was so much information there that I found it hard to determine which organizations and dates were relevant, especially when a dataset had multiple publication and update years. I'm glad the FGDC has such high standards for detailed metadata, though, and I'm sure it will become easier to sort through with practice. 

The actual designing of the map was also time-consuming because everything in ArcGIS Pro is new to me, but I had fun with it. Some design elements were specified in the lab, such as making rivers blue and interstates red, while we had a lot of freedom with other elements, which provided a nice balance between structure and creativity. I enjoyed playing with the locations, colors, and styles of different elements. However, I found myself second-guessing my choices and wondering if they looked professional and cohesive enough. Overall, though, I'm happy with my final map.

 

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