GIS 5007 Module 2: Typography

 

              Module 2 in Computer Cartography gave us an opportunity to effectively employ appropriate typography methods to our maps. By utilizing ArcGIS Pro and the provided lab data, we were able to label several points of interest on the Florida peninsula.

The Major Cities of Florida were labeled using the Label tool in the Labeling ribbon tab. We can label a few different ways - for cleaned classified data that has several “types”, right click the layer in the Contents pane that needs labeling and click Symbology. Choose “Unique Values”  in the Primary Symbology dropdown menu – this will provide a way to individualize points. To label those unique points, again highlight the corresponding layer in the Contents pane and click the Labeling tab in the ribbon. Choose instead to click the “Class” dropdown menu within the Label Class section and choose “Create Label Classes from Symbology”. I did this method for the Major Cities data, but opted to also manually create labels for specific Major Cities by inputting a SQL query (“Where FEATURE is equal to PENSACOLA”, and so on) into the SQL Query dialogue box in the Label Class section in the Labeling ribbon tab.

              Water features were similarly done by right-clicking the FloridaRivers layer in the Contents pane and clicking “Label”, then customizing the labels with blue italics to indicate water feature. When we look at the Attribute Table for this layer, we notice that the Name field has several variations of the same river (segments of river)– the details are important, but for the purposes of this map, not needed. We chose to use the RName field to see the River Name, not the segmented/detailed rivers parts – this allowed for a less cluttered map. We adjusted the placement of the river label to “River placement” with an Offset curve to better adhere to typographic guidelines.

              For the Okefenokee and Everglade swamp areas, we converted labels into annotations using the Convert To Annotation option in the Map ribbon tab – this allowed us to move the labels around and customize as needed.

 

Map Major Cities & Waterways of Florida in Albers Conical Equal Area projection.

The three customizations I made to my map for this module are: 

1. Marking the State Capital (Tallahassee) with a gold star to indicate it is different from the other major cities that are symbolized as red dots.
2. Using the “Swamp” pattern on the other major waterways (Okefenokee and the Everglades) to distinguish them separately from other bodies of water.
3. Inserted a Hatched background to provide more aesthetic and contrast without subtracting from true purpose of map.