Cartographic Design

Following the principles of good cartographic design, create a map using GIS data sourced online and upload for peer review. Provide peer review on a classmate's map and then review feedback you receive and complete a final map incorporating this feedback if appropriate.

Draft and Final Map

The feedback from my classmate was that overall, the map looked good but they did observe that most of the elements were on the left. They noted that it wasn't an issue as it balanced well with the land mass, but I felt it was worth exploring whether anything could be shifted. The bottom right corner had good clear space available so I have shifted the North arrow there, ensuring it remains aligned at the bottom with the scale bar. In my opinion this change has provided more balance to the map rather than having a cluster of elements at the bottom left.

In my draft map submission I mentioned that I had struggled to find colours for my symbols that contrasted with each other sufficiently. The classmate who gave feedback felt that the colours contrasted well and stood out from the basemap, however they suggested I could try a dark blue instead of green. I attempted several colour combinations, including dark blue with the red. Using blue in the symbols didn't provide enough visual contrast in the map as there is already blue in the basemap and locator map. I have kept my symbology as the green and red combination as I felt no other combination made the symbols stand out from each other more. I think the problem actually lies in there being only a small amount of 'current wetland' remaining, so that feature will not stand out as much as the 'pre-human wetlands' no matter what colour I choose.

On self-reviewing my map in line with the principles of map design, I made some further alterations. The original scale bar used had tick marks with no numbers associated. I personally find it a clean and simple scale bar that is straightforward to interpret, but in experimenting with different scale bars I found the one used in my final version provided better visual balance with the North arrow, with both having solid black in their design. The downside to this was that the solid black stood out more than the previous scale bar, so the title and legend receded somewhat in visual importance. To remedy this I increased the line width of the title and legend border to bring them more to the forefront. This in turn made them the same border thickness as the locator map.