Introduction to Cartography and Map Design Principles

Week 1 lecture was an Introduction to Cartography and Map Design Principles. We learned some of the history of map making over time, as well as some of the key principles.  We were given twenty Tufteisms and how they should apply to maps. They assignment consisted of choosing one example of a well-designed map and one example of a poorly-designed map and apply the Tufteisms to each map.

  1.       Example of a Well-Designed Map

      This map is a good example of a well-designed map. This map is straight forward and easy to understand. The layout is used effectively (Commandment 5 – Tufteism 19) along with its labels, color boundaries zones (Commandment 3 – Tufteisms 7 & 8). Over all this map has no map crap. (Commandment 4 – Tufteisms 11, 14, 15, 16, and 18).  I liked this map from the beginning because you where able to get information from it right away. 

        2.    Example of a Poorly-Designed Map

1.       This map is a very good example of a poorly-designed map. I believe it’s a map for tourists to use but how in the world someone can use this map to get around is hard to imagine.  This map is in need of a street layout with labels showing street names. Symbols showing the most important points of interest. (Commandment 3 –Tuftesims 7 & 8).  The map shows a handwritten scale and north arrow, there is no way to know if they correct (Commandment 2 –Tuftesims  5, 6, 9, 10, 12, and 13). This map fails to have any kind of layout to be considered a map of any kind for people to use.