Module 1- Introduction to Cartography and Map Design

 

    This week's lesson was about the history of Cartography, the commandments when making maps, and critiquing maps. We talked about cartographers, the first maps and their evolutions, and the tools used to make maps. There are a bunch of commandments for map making, but we are only focusing on 6 of them for this class.

Well-Designed Map

    This is an example of a well-designed map because it follows the following commandments;

Commandment 1- Map Substantial information. This map does a great job of showing substantial information and making it easy to read and be understood by most anyone.

Commandment 2- Don’t lie with maps. This map seems to have accurate information, because location can be double checked by things like Google Maps.

Commandment 4- Minimize Map Crap. This map is a great example of minimizing map crap. The colors of the map are neutral and easy to look at, the elements are simple, and there aren’t too many symbols that make the map crowded.

Poorly Designed Map

    

                        This is an example of a poorly designed map because it doesn’t do a good job following the following commandments;

            Commandment 3- Effectively label maps. There are lots of symbols on the map, but there aren’t any legible labels, so it can be quite difficult to understand. The size and positions of the labels could be better and more effective.

            Commandment 4- Minimize Map Crap. This is the commandment that this map breaks the worst. There is so much on this map it just looks like a jumbled mess. This makes it very hard to understand and focus on. The idea is great and creative but the execution is not very good.

            Commandment 6- Evaluate Your Map. The other commandments might not have been broken if they had evaluated it more. If they were an experienced map maker, then they should have been able to see what some of the maps issues were, and fixed them.

This weeks experience was good. It was fun because we got to evaluate maps, which will help in the future with a couple of things. First, it gave us the knowledge to understand why some maps are effective and why some aren't. Which will let us sort through useful or not useful maps. Second, it will help us determine what map styles we like and how to create our own unique style. Lastly, and maybe obviously, this will help us to create better maps in the future.