Map Critique 5

Figure-Ground
The figure stands out well over the white background.  It is very easy to identify what the important elements of the map are.  The tones used look nice.
Legibility
The title is large and legible, which is great.  The text on the rest of the map is slightly hard to read.  It would be more legible to use a uniform font for the text used in the map.
Clarity
Elements in the map are clear and easy to distinguish between.  Some of the proportional symbols are very large, making it hard to see the base map. 
Balance
The appearance of the map is somewhat bland.  Most of the space in the map is filled, but it could be rearranged to be more visually pleasing.  It is nice that they included design elements around the figure, but they could be tweaked to look more appealing.
Visual Hierarchy
The proportional symbols stand out very well and they are obviously the most important part of the map.  Using a lighter blue tone for the states might be a good idea, seeing as the tone has no relevance or meaning in the map.  It is very easy to see which states had high numbers of lynching.

Source: frostburg.edu

Map Critique 4

Figure-Ground
The important elements being mapped stand out clearly.  The shading on the edges of the geographical regions helps make elements more distinguishable.  The white background makes the map stand out nicely.
Legibility
Most of the text on the map is legible.  Some of the text is very small, which makes it less legible, but this is also a small version of the map.  The fonts used look good and are clear.
Clarity
Distinguishing between different elements on the map is easy and I do not see any major problems.  It would be nice if the tone of white was not used as both the background and one of the tones in the choropleth map of counties.
Balance
The map fairly easy to look at and it does not have any large blank spaces.  The placement of the map design elements looks good.  It might be beneficial to include a scale and north arrow.
Visual Hierarchy
The color scheme used is slightly odd and could be improved upon.  The important areas definitely do stand out over the less important.  The red areas do stand out the most, which is good, but it is hard to visually interpret with the other tones.

Source: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/biomass.html

Map Critique 3

Figure-Ground
The important elements of the map stand out clearly.  The light grey background allows for the map to stand out well. 
Legibility
Some of the labels are very hard to read.  The country labels are in a brown tone that does not work with all of the other tones.  The legend and Title are easy to read and look good.
Clarity
Most of the elements on the map are distinguishable and the boundaries are easy to identify.  There are some unexplained dotted lines running throughout the map that are slightly confusing. 
Balance
The map appears balanced and is fairly easy  to look at.  There are no large blank spaces and they did a nice job including some map design elements.  I do not see any major problems with the balance of the map.
Visual Hierarchy
The regions that appear red and green stand out very well and it seems like that was intended.  The cream and light brown regions are not the focus of the map and they did a nice job emphasizing them less.  The tones and arrangements of the map make it fairly easy to interpret.

Source: farmland.org

Map Critique 2

Figure-Ground
The important areas on the map stand out very well.  The brightly colored tones of the countries being mapped really pop out over the white and grey background.  It is very apparent which countries are in the EU and which are not.
Legibility
There are not many labels included, but the title and legend are legible.  It would be nice if the title was larger and if the numbers in the legend were in a more uniform font.
Clarity
One slight problem I see with the clarity is that it is difficult to see the boundary between some of the countries, especially if they are surrounded by other countries of the same color.  Making the boundaries between countries more distinguishable would definitely benefit the clarity.  A neat line would also be nice.
Balance
The balance would be greatly improved if a few design elements were added to fill unused space.  The title could also be larger.  It would be nice if the legend was more detailed.  This map lacks the substance so it appears somewhat imbalanced.
Visual Hierarchy
The visual hierarchy is lacking for a few reasons.  First, the color scheme is very odd.  The tones used make the map hard to interpret.  I also find it odd that they used black to fill the countries that should stand out the most.  A different hue and color scheme could improve the map.


Source: deram.net

Map Critique 1

This is a bivariate map of election results that shows the poll results for each state using a choropleth map and measures the amount of electoral votes for each state using distortion of the geographical size of each state.  I will assess the map using the five essentials of map design below:

Figure-Ground
The geographic map definitely stands out over the white background.  It is very easy to distinguish between the the important parts of the map and the rest of the figure.  I do not see any major problems.
Legibility
For the most part, it is fairly easy to read most of the lettering on the map.  Some of the blue states have labels that are hard to identify, which is a potential problem.  The font is clear and legible.
Clarity
It is pretty easy to see the difference between geographical elements on the map.  Some of the blue states have boundaries that are slightly hazy, which could be problematic.  It would be nice if the boundaries between the states were all one size.
Balance
The map may not be very visually pleasing, but it does not seem like that was the intent.  It would be nice if some of the blank spaces around the map included some design elements, such as a better legend, a north star and some source information.  If a few elements were added to fill blank space and make the map look nicer there could be a major improvement in balance.
Visual Hierarchy 
The important elements of the map do stand out, but there is a problem with the explanation of the hues used.  There is no legend that explains the ranges of blue tones and the ranges of red tones.  Obviously the darker red and blue tones stand out the most, but they fail to explain why. 

Source: http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html

Mapping in ArcGIS

In this exercise we were instructed to make two simple maps using the mapping functions built into ArcMap.  The first map is a choropleth map and second is a proportional symbol map.   Both maps are produced using the demographic data on United States counties that is given in ArcMap. 

For the choropleth map, I decided to explore senior citizen populations in the United States at the county level.  I used 5 classes with the default natural breaks classification method.  The number of senior citizens is normalized by the total population, resulting in percentage values that are easy to interpret.  I included a few important design elements in the map.  The map was exported from ArcMap, in layout view, to a JPEG (shown below).

 

 

 

 

 

For the Proportional symbol map, I decided to use vacancy statistics to show the number of vacant buildings per county.  Vacant houses are mapped using absolute data.  The larger the circle symbol, the more vacant buildings present.  I chose to use 5 different sizes of proportional symbols to give a larger range that is easier to interpret.  There are a few crucial design elements included.   The map was exported from ArcMap, in layout view, to a JPEG (shown below).

 

 

 

 

 



Bivariate Symbol Map

For this lab exercise we were instructed to create a bivariate map using two variables of our own choosing.  I decided to map obesity, using the percentage of the population considered obese by state, and the number of fast food restaurants per 100,000 people in each state.  I first made a base map in ArcMap, then exported the map into Adobe Illustrator.  Obesity is represented as a chloropleth map and fast food restaurants are represented by proportional symbols.  The statistical data inputs were compiled in an excel spreadsheet from data that I found online.  The map was created with all of the necessary design elements and with respect to the essentials of map design.

The chloropleth map of the states represents obesity.  The darker tones are states that are the states that have more prevalent obesity rates.  This allows the obese states to stand out more in attempt to create a visual hierarchy with the most problemed states towards the top.  The prevalence of fast food is represented by proportional symbols, meaning the larger the dinner plate symbol is, the more prevalent fast food restaurants are in that state.  I left the background of the map white to make the important elements of the map stand out with respect to figure-ground appearance and visual hierarchy.  I used very clear fonts for all of the text boxes and data information to ensure legibility in the map.  One problem I ran into while producing the map was limited space for the amount of information that needed to be included in the map.  I had to make a few small tweaks to the map to ensure clarity and balance.  For example, I used different scales for Hawaii and Alaska than I did for the continental U.S.  I made use of lines for some of the proportional symbols on the East Coast to avoid over crowding.  The text boxes, legends, title and map specs are placed strategically around the geographic map area in order to create a balanced look that has limited blank space.