Introduction to CorelDraw

This week we were able to learn a little about a graphical design program, CorelDraw. I am familiar with some graphical software, but this one was totally new to me. Learning the software definitely slowed me down because it isn't very intuitive (at least not to me), but I feel by the end of this exercise I have a little better handle on it. Our objective this week was to take a basic state of Florida map in ArcMap, and take it to Corel Draw to use some of the graphical features on it and create a children's Atlas page for the state of Florida. Here's my result:

The north arrow was created by the basic shapes feature in CorelDraw, and I added the "N" text above it. I colored it magenta as it is for a children's atlas, and I wanted to add a little color to the map. I put the state nickname toward the top as part of the title, and I imported the state flag and state seal images onto the map. I could not find a state seal without a background and could not "fill" it as it's an imported image; definitely something to work on for next time. I chose to label 3 or 4 of the major cities as well as the capital. I made the text of the capital slightly larger and used bold font to highlight it. Overall, this took a lot of time, but I feel I learned a lot about CorelDraw as well about decision-making in regards to orientation of map elements.