Cartographic
Design

For this exercise I choose to make a mental map of the gym that I lift at. I chose this area because I spend a lot of time there, as well as had a clear mental image of what the space looks like. This map was 100% made in Adobe Illustrator, and the goal of making this map was to re-familiarize ourselves with Illustrator. I definitely needed the refresher, and it helped set me up for success later on during the semester.

This map was an exercise in applying and gaining familiarity in the five essentials of map design. I was given a Adobe Illustrator Document with all of the necessary information and text in it, however it was not aesthetically pleasing at all. At this point, the map was bordering on illegible. I had to tale the available information and rearrange, resize, change the color, and add shadows in order to increase legibility and make a good-looking map. I had a lot of trouble with the fine details on this map, but I worked through them and gained a better understanding of how to apply the five essentials of map design.

This is a map of Long Lake in my hometown of New Brighton, Minnesota. This lake is within walking distance of my house, so very often through-out middle/high school I’d bike down with some worms and a pole to hang out and fish. I even would fish for carp there every so often, and I have a lot of fond memories of this lake.

I acquired the map that I based this off a bathymetric map that I got from the MN DNR Lakefinder. I uploaded that document to Adobe illustrator and went from there. I then used the Pen tool to digitize the contours, and then I used the pen tool to draw the roads and railroads. To get the final look, I had to mess around with the layering to get the map to look how I wanted. It felt really fulfilling to create a map basically from scratch. I did have a reference map that I used, but I had to draw everything that I wanted on the map.

Overall, the goal of this project was to gain familiarity and understanding of coordinate systems and projections. Before I could start the map itself, I had to look up information and create all of the blurbs about each projection, as well as the text explaining what projections are. From there it took a fair amount of trial and error to determine the best color scheme and legend for the map. All of the strife was worth it however, as the final product turned out well and I gained a more in-depth knowledge of map projections.

I liked this map a lot because I was involved in the data from creation to the final display. I collected this data using the Gaia GPS app on my phone, and it is a really neat and easy tool to use. Another interesting thing about this map is that it is georeferenced, so you could upload it onto your phone and actually see yourself on it. This particular copy is not able to be georeferenced however. 

I wanted to make this map because I like fishing in the area, and I realized that there are a lot of unmarked foot paths which could be easily mapped. If I were update this map, I'd like to add more descriptions to the map, as well as map some more trails within the area. 

This map was intended to grow my knowledge of mapping within ArcGIS Pro. I have done similar maps in my GIS one and two courses, but it was good to get a refresher. Something that I did learn from this project is how to better find fonts and add more character to my maps in ArcGIS Pro. I chose to symbolize the vacant housing units per person in the US.  Wisconsin has a large amount of cabins, and I thought that it would be an interesting map to make to see the trends nation-wide. I tried a variety of color schemes, but the final one I chose was my favorite. Something about the lighter areas being vacant houses makes a lot of sense, and looks good as well. I am very proud of how this map turned out.

By making this map, I learned how to process data in order to be presented as a proportional symbol map. This was done through the use of Excel. The background is sourced from ArcGIS Pro, otherwise everything present on the map was then created in Adobe Illustrator. This is the map that I am least proud of out of the lot. I honestly just don't like how it looks. If I were to re-do this map, I want to use a projection that emphasizes Iceland more, as well as choose more creative symbols.

The goal of this map was to have all of the knowledge of gained this semester in hand to create a map of something that I am interested in. What I ended up choosing was to do a mini- poster talking about my term project for the fall semester of the 2021-2022 school year.. The project is titled "Relationship between above ground biomass and income in the city of Eau Claire". The resulting map took a couple of iterations. It was made completely in ArcGIS Pro, and one of the hardest things to get figured out was the color scheme. The purple and red color combo seemed to be serviceable, as well as accessible to people who are colorblind. 

I wanted to make this map to show off some of the work that I did this semester, and I am very happy with how it turned out.