Geo Leah

 For this assignment, we created a simple map of Florida to explore principles of typography and labeling. We learned how to label point features (cities), line features (rivers), and polygon features (swamps) using the Label tool in ArcGIS Pro. We also converted labels to annotations and practiced editing, moving, and resizing annotations. I labeled cities with a sans serif font (Century Gothic) and geographic features with a serif font (Bodoni MT) to show the difference between cultural and natural features. I used only these two fonts for the rest of my map text, so all the text on the map looks varied but cohesive. I represented all my cities with a red dot except for Tallahassee, for which I used a yellow star and a larger font size to show that it is the capital. For the rivers, I made the labeled rivers a darker blue than the unlabeled ones to show that they were more important and to clarify exactly which river the label referenced. Since Okefenokee Swamp was too small to p...

For this week's lab, we selected one well-designed map and one poorly designed map and evaluated them based on given criteria and Edward Tufte's six map design commandments. The well-designed map I chose is an overview of the bus system in Trondheim, Norway. In my opinion, this map does a good, but not perfect, job of fulfilling its purpose of informing riders about the Trondheim bus system. It meets Tufte’s 4th commandment, “Minimize map crap,” by only labeling important bus stops and including only information necessary to navigate the overall system of buses (and one tram) in Trondheim. Its minimalist design prevents the many routes and colors from becoming overly chaotic, and less important information, such as summer service changes and neighborhood names, are in smaller text. It meets Tufte’s 5th commandment, “Map layout matters,” by using a very simple layout divided into three rectangles: the main map, the inset, and the explanatory graphic for the inset. Less important...