For this lab I was to create a map of Michigan intended for tourists to be read at highway rest stops.
One thing that can be a big help if you’re a tourist is to know your traveling options. As this is just a map of Michigan I included only land transportation, no airplanes or ferries.
I titled it: Road, Bus, and Rail in Michigan (click link to view PDF). The map differentiates cities based on whether or not they have Amtrak Stations and whether they are bus or rail. It also includes the highways. You’ll notice that for the symbols I used differences in hue as well as lightness to show which cities had bus (lighter green) or rail (darker red) stations. The difference in lightness would help colorblind readers tell the difference between cities with bus stations and rail stations. I bolded the text for bus and rail station cities for the sake of emphasis as well as making them a darker shade of green and red respectively both for emphasis and to associate the text clearly with the symbols. I also put the state capital, “Lansing” in bold for the sake of emphasis. It lacks a station, but since the capital and other cities without stations are all in black the contrast in color should prevent readers from getting confused. Another thing I did with color to help with reading the map is that the Amtrak railroads are in red to create a clear association with the color of the stations.
I had to do a great deal of compromising with how to position the text. ArcMap is a useful tool, but it is not as flexible of a tool in handling text. There is quite a bit of kerning and leading that would have improved the readability of the text. In the next lab I will edit this map further in Adobe Illustrator.
Andrew Miller's Cartography 