Cartographic Design - Ward 7 Public Schools

The focus of this lab was to apply Gestalt's Principles into creating a map of all public schools of Ward 7 in Washington D.C.  These principles are visual hierarchy, contrast, figure-ground relationship, and balance.  Here is how I achieved each principle:

• Visual Hierarchy - The most important items should stand out and that is the case here with Ward 7 itself, the schools we are identifying, the titles, and finally the legend.  All other elements are lower on the scale of importance and are therefore subdued or de-emphasized so they don't draw the reader's attention away prematurely.

• Contrast - Contrast was mostly applied to the schools.  The red color stands out against a white and grey background.  The school symbols have contrast within themselves as well as their different sizes indicate what type of school they are.  The call out box in the locator map is also a form of contrast as it is bright yellow and that stands out from its surroundings.  

• Figure-Ground Relationship - For this a couple of techniques were used.  1.  Ward 7 is brighter than the surrounding areas.  2.  The roads are mostly subdued (grey in color) to allow the school icons to stand out better. 

• Balance - Balance was achieved by placing Ward 7 in a location that best filled the map space.  Then the locator was placed in the empty area in the top left of the map space.  The legend, scale bar, north star, and additional information was placed in the bottom right empty space.  For the top right empty space there wasn’t much left to add to the map, balance was achieved from the top left and bottom right corners, but the space felt empty.  So I decided to label that the colored space (matching the locator) was still indeed Maryland.  

Overall I think the map came out ok and some new skills were learned in Illustrator.  One thing I would like to learn in the future is how to make the roads that have dead ends round out vice remain open as they are in my map.  I did learn the neat trick of using multiple strokes in Illustrator to achieve the hollow road appearance, so I was happy with that.  I do hope that my color choices are acceptable as I always caveat that I am color blind, so these seem ok to me.  Leave your thoughts, comments, and suggestions below as they are always welcome.  

Cheers!