Typology

This week's emphasis was on Typology as it relates to Cartography.  There are many conventions when presenting text (either as titles, legends or feature labels) that has been standardized in maps over the centuries.  Expert cartographers have gone before us and established the "rules" of where and how to best place text on the complex and challenging background that every map presents.  Over time, many of these "best practices" have been recognized and codified.

Our task with this map was to place 17 labels that follow these conventions and best communicate the goal of the map.  I've kept the overall title and legend quite simple.  All the key (island) names/labels share the same style and color and blend in to match the overall "sandy" tone of the keys.  As much as possible, I placed these "on land" if I could avoid overprinting. Some of the keys are quite small or busy so it was necessary to place their labels "on water".  Aquatic features are in blue and italicized. Most of these are slanted to fit their geographic positions. Symbols were placed for Marathon and Key Colony Beach "cities". Marathon Shores is technically a neighborhood, not a city/town, so it didn't get a symbol but followed the color/style used for cities. The airport and country club were two features that required call-outs to pinpoint their exact location.

It is interesting to note that Google Maps and Bing Maps have slight differences on where exactly some of these features are. It took a while to figure out Vaca Key is actually the whole of the center island.