Module 3 Lab: Cartographic Design

The purpose of this week's lab was to continue learning Adobe Illustrator to develop cartographic design skills during the process of creating a map of the Hispanic populations of south Florida counties.  The cartographic process was reinforced during this exercise, including the cartographic design aspects of visual weight, contrast, figure-ground, and balance.   This particular assignment was more involved than others, requiring a lot of rearranging of the choropleth map and essential elements, trying different paper orientations, printing out samples, and critiquing to achieve a satisfactory final product.  Throughout the exercise many of my AI skills got quite a workout and many new skills were learned, with just a few gasps and quick touches of Ctrl Z to undo scary errors.

Census data provided by UWF was already grouped for the legend, and those figures were adjusted per lab instructions.  A greater-than sign (>) at the beginning of each percentage class after the initial one indicates a clear distinction between adjacent percentage classes. Curiously, Charlotte County is missing from the map.  Perhaps this is due to a Hispanic population less than 3.3% or due to missing information in the data file.  Further investigation is warranted.  For clarity and to use up some white space, I added labels for the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

Module 3 Lab:  Hispanic Populations of South Florida Counties

After numerous revisions and four potential submittals, I believe I have a map which provides an easy-to-read and easy-to-interpret collection of information regarding the percentages of Hispanics living in south Florida counties.