Mapping Typography

This week's cartography exercise focused on the complexities involved in using text labels in mapping. I was given an Adobe Illustrator file that contained only an unlabeled mapped area and a separate list of diverse features to locate and label on said map. These features included islands, bodies of water, cities, an airport and some recreational features. It was my task to label these features according to established typography guidelines for maps and to add the other necessary map elements that would make the map legible to the map user. I placed text labels according to the type of feature labeled, e.g. placing labels for hydrographic features within spaces representing those features, in all caps, spanning the feature when appropriate and colored them carefully so that they stood out legibly from the blue background of the map area, but did not overwhelm the rest of the map or the labels for the land based features. Care was taken with label placement, type size, type positioning and choice of type family. The resulting map, below, provides a general overview of the layout of one chain of the lower Florida Keys, Marathon.

The Islands of Marathon, FL