Typography

This week we completed Module 3: Topography where we produced a map of Marathon, Florida and its neighboring islands. The main focus of the assignment was how to label a map in accordance with general typographic guidelines. Font type, size, orientation, and placement of text are important to consider when labeling the map. For point features, symbols should be placed on the left and defined to the right. Leader lines should be very thin, with no arrowhead, and point to the center of the symbol without touching it. While this assignment had the main focus of typography, producing a quality map with all the essential map elements was an important scope of the project as well.  First, I made the basemap in ArcPro and shared it to ArcGIS Online. I exported the map from there to Adobe Illustrator where I created a mapboard. I created layers for a legend, north arrow, neatline, and map title. I also created a layer and sublayers for all the Keys, one for the cities, the state park, country club, and airport. This helped me stay in order when I edited. This week we added an Inset Map to our map. I struggled for a while to get this step completed correctly. The step where I was supposed to make a clipping mask was not yielding what it was supposed to. The first <path> object was not showing up as the border of the topography. It was just one county, therefore I was clipping one county for the Inset Map when I ran through the steps. Finally, I just started from scratch and paid close attention to each step and I got it right. I attribute this to getting familiar with the Adobe Illustrator interface. Part of the assignment called for some map customizations. I applied a drop shadow to the topography since I used a beige color and it helped it stand out a little more on the map. For the hydrographic features, I used a blue font and italicized them all. For the Florida Bay label, I used a wave transformation on the text. I also transformed the harbor texts 30 degrees to fit them inside their respective harbors. When I labeled the keys, I used leader lines to help organize the labeling. While I did not get too crazy with the map, this exercise helped me play around with different styles on the labeling. I also got some experience using more tools, such as the line tool. Adobe Illustrator is proving to be a handy map making tool!