GIS3015 Module 4 Lab: Typography

This lab focused on utilizing Adobe Illustrator to create a map of the Middle Keys of Florida. The emphasis of this exercise was on typography.  The importance of layer organization cannot be stressed enough!  I found myself re-arranging and prioritizing my layers, making adjustments as I discovered issues here and there.  Over time, I anticipate that this will become even more logical and easier to complete. Being new to AI, I experienced some difficulties caused by inadvertent key strokes and who knows what else. These were all resolved, except for being unable to draw a straight-line path on which I could place text.  No online source of information was located that could help me eliminate the error message which kept popping up, so that will require further investigation if it happens again in a different document. Practicing letter and word spacing, kerning and leading during this assignment helped me to understand the advantages of those practices better.  Creating a legend in ArcMap is preferable to creating one in AI, in my opinion.  By the end of it all, a map of the Middle Keys of Florida showing cities and select features was produced.

Map of Middle Keys of Florida showing cities and other features

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.