Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users

Describing how to build balanced map layouts suited to varied mapping goals, this guide focuses on export options that suit different media and can be edited in other applications. The wide range of text characteristics needed for expert map design as well as how to improve map readability with type effects such as character spacing, leading, callouts, shadows, and halos is detailed. Tips are included for using font tools in the Windows operating system, such as creating special characters in map text, as is information on using text characteristics to indicate feature locations, categories, and hierarchies on maps. How cartographic conventions guide placement of labels for point, line, and area features are also explained.

<div><b>Cynthia A. Brewer</b> is map and atlas design consultant for the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Cancer Institute, the National Center for Health Statistics, and National Park Service. She is an associate professor of geography and applied cartography at Pennsylvania State University and the designer and editor of ColorBrewer, a web tool for selecting map color schemes. She lives in State College, Pennsylvania.<br></div>