Cartographic Design

This lab tasked us with conceptualizing and creating maps for the need of the end user, based on Gestalt's Principles of perceptual organization, which are:

1. Closure - allows us to visually complete an image even when components are missing
2. Common fate - allows us to group elements that share the same direction of motion
3. Continuity - allows us to move our eyes from one object to another
4. Figure-ground - allows us to perceive some objects closer to us than others
5. Proximity - allows us to view objects that are close together as a group
6. Similarity - allows us to group together objects that are similar in size, shape, color, etc.
7. Smallness, or area - allows us to view smaller areas as figures and larger areas as ground
8. Symmetry - allows us to view symmetrical objects as whole figures that form around their centers

In this lab we were to create a map similar to that of Figure 12.5B in the textbook that showed schools within Ward 7 of Washington, D.C

I used a gray color to deemphasize the rest of the city and a beige color to show Ward 7 more clearly. I used different sizes of school symbols to show the different types of school. The features are smaller and appear closer to the user than other features. Also shows are roads and neighborhood clusters within Ward 7. The inset at the top right shows Ward 7 in relation to the rest of the city. I wanted to make the map well balanced, leaving not too much white space and placing other essential map elements well. With this in mind, I placed the legend at the bottom right of the map and the inset at the top right. The north arrow is relatively small and just above the legend. The title is prominent and does not overlap the relevant portion of the map. The scale bar, author, and data source are in a smaller font so they are not emphasized in the bottom center of the map. I feel this map gave me a better understanding of how to properly arrange a map with the user in mind.