[OKGIS] Book(s) on beautifying maps

[David.J.Morris-1 at ou.edu]

Hello Aaron,

     My name is David Morris and I am a Geography student at OU.  I have several books on cartography that I can recommend for producing better looking maps.  They are:

"Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users" by Cynthia Brewer, published by ESRI Press.
"How Maps Work" by Alan M. MacEachren, published by The Guilford Press
"Thematic Cartography and Geographic Visualization" by Terry A. Slocum, et al., published by Pearson/Prentice Hall.  This is a text book but it contains a lot of good information on map creation.

One of the respondents to your email suggested using Adobe Illustrator as one tool for creation of better looking maps after they have been created in ArcGIS.  I believe he is correct in suggesting the use of that program.  Rand/McNally uses it to create their finished map products along with ArcGIS.  Unfortunately I don't have experience with Illustrator to advise on how best to use it.

I hope this helps.

David Morris

----- Original Message -----
From: Aaron Champion <achampion at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, July 26, 2007 2:30 pm
Subject: [OKGIS] Book(s) on beautifying maps
To: Oklahoma GIS Community <okgis at gis.gis.ou.edu>


> All:
> 
> I had a question about improving the aesthetic quality of maps.  I've
> read Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" several
> times, but I'm more curious now about books specifically dealing with
> techniques on beautifying maps created in ArcGIS.  Typically my work
> flow is to build the map in ArcGIS, turn on a layer at a time and
> export it as a transparent tiff or png, and do the final touchups in
> Photoshop.  There are several reasons as to why I dislike this method.
> 
> Is anyone aware of any books on this topic, or has ESRI and the GIS
> community still not clued in to the importance of visually-pleasing
> (and accurate) maps?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Aaron Champion
> Association of Central Oklahoma Governments
> Transportation Planning and Data Services
> 21 East Main Street
> Oklahoma City, OK 73104-2405
> P: (405) 234-2264   F: (405) 234-2200