map critique 5

This map was taken from http://www.businessinsider.com/22-gorgeous-maps-that-define-the-united-states-of-america-2013-7#just-because-america-catches-fire-a-lot-of-the-time-does-that-mean-americans-leave-of-course-not-9 . This map shows the cumulative fire energy energy released by wildfires in the United States since 2001. The figure ground of this map is very poor and it is hard to distinguish between the background color and darker color of the map. There is no legend so that makes the map somewhat hard to interpret. The very small numbers inside the boxes are very hard to read so the legibility is very poor. The balance is very good with your attention being drawn to the areas with a higher output of fire energy, this is done through the bright colors like yellow being used.

map critique 4

This map was produced by the New York Times (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/17/opinion/17coontz2-map/17coontz2-map-popup.png)  and it shows countries and whether they offer paid maternal leave or not. The legibility is very good on this map you can clearly read everything on this map without straining to read it. Figure-ground and visual hierarchy are also very good because the mapped area pops out from the background and your attention is drawn to the important areas of the map and doesn't distract your attention. Clarity is very good all the edges are sharp and it does not blur at the edges. This is overall a very well made map.

map critique 3

This map was taken from https://support.google.com/maps/answer/68384?hl=en. it shows the areas around the world where google streetview is available. This is a very well made map and does its purpose very very well. the figure-ground is very good and you can easily distinguish the area being mapped from the background water. Though since there is no legend or title on the map if you didnt know where it came from and just saw the map you may not know what was being mapped at that moment.the legability is good and you can easily read all the country names on map. Overall this is a very good map.

map critique 2

This map was taken from http://sportsinternthoughts.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/usa_soccer_3leagues_h1.png and was produced by Bill Turianski. It shows the spread of Major League Soccer fandom in the United States. I personally really like this map because I am a very huge soccer fan. The clarity between the colors is very distinguishable and you can clearly see where regions start and stop but without a legend its a bit hard to distinguish what some of the colors stand for since the same color is used for multiple clubs. Though the legibility on some of the writing on the right side is difficult to read. But with all the writing on the right side the author did a very good job of visually balancing the mapping area. the figure-ground is a bit odd as the water is to light in color and is slightly difficult to distinguish where the divide between teh basemap and water is. 

map critique 1

This map was taken from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330290/London-2012-Olympics-New-pictures-stadiums-nearly-ready.html. It is a map the was produced for the London Olympics in 2012 and it shows the area surrounding Olympic park. This  map does not have great clarity as road lines are not the most clear and blur together in some spots. The figure-ground is very poor because the map is very busy and draws your attention all over the map instead of drawing to the direct area around Olympic park. Though the balance of the map is very good having no areas on the map that that seem blank and it is very full.

exercise 10 Mapping in ARCGIS

The purpose of this project was to introduce us to mapping using only ARCMAP to produce the maps. This got us away from being reliant on adobe illustrator to make our maps and taught us an easier way to make chloropleth maps and proprotional symbol maps. We had to make two maps (one chloropleth and one proportional symbol map) in ARCMAP using US census data provided to us by the program and the base maps were also produced in ARCMAP . We had to decide what classifaction system to use on our own and what of the census data that we were going to map. for the chloropleth map i chose to map Female population in the united states by county and for the second map I chose to map Population of people aged 18-21.The biggest hurdle in this project was learning how to use the program since we had never used ARCMAP to produce full maps before this point. Once that hurdle was climed and i had knowledge of theprogram making these maps became fun and the only problem after that was balancing visual hierarchy and making sure the maps did not look poor.

exercise 11 Mapping GIS Data

Chloropleth maps of ethnicity desities in New York city

This exercise required us to use only ARCMAP to creat four different maps of one city out of a group of four and create four different cholorpleth maps of that city showing where different ethnicity populations are concentrated. this is one of two maps that we were required to make soley in ARCMAP this made the process a little harder since we had to relearn how to make maps in the program. I chose to make my maps of New York City and map where African American, Asian, Hispanic and Caucasion  populations are concentrated in the area. The data used was obtained from the US Census and the base maps were produced in ARCMAP. The biggest problem i had was figuring out how to rename the data to make it more readable by changing the class break classifacation. With this map it was very fun to finally be able to learn the easy way to make chloropleth maps without using Adobe Illustrator.

exercise 8 bivariate map

Bivariate map showing corolation between population and violent crime cases

this exercise made us utilize the skills we had learned in making the proportional symbol map and the chloropleth map to create a bivariate map. This is a map that has both a cholorpleth map for a base  with proportional symbols overlayed on top of them. We were required to map two sets of data the related in a way that they would make sense if they were mapped together. I chose to map only the area of Wisconsin the data that was mapped was population by county and total number of violent crime cases in each county. Just like the proportional symbol map the hardest part of this map making process was to find data that both correlated and that could be mapped visually well. I obtained my crime rate data from http://oja.state.wi.us/sites/default/-files/Crime_2011.pdf  and my population data from http://dhs.wisconsin.gov/population/index.htm. I then had to put this data into class breaks that I was able to choose. This map was very hard to keep it seeming uncluttered seeing as how much had to be mapped on it and since there were two seperate variables needing to be mapped. Also color selection was very key, i couldnt choose two colors that would look to simmilar or the data could be confused but at the same time I needed to maintain colors that were easily distinguishable.

 

 

exercise 7 proportional symbol map

Proportional Symbol map of Total amount of hospitals per state

This map shows the total amount of hospitals per state. The in structions for this exercise were to create a proportional symbol map by finding data from the internet that would display variation across the area being mapped. The base map was exported from ARCMAP and the data was collected from kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-hospiatls/. I chose to go with the area of the United States where  my data was collected and mapped over. One of the hardest and most frustrating parts of this exercise was finding data to map in the first place. I had may ideas for what to map there just wasnt data available to make the map or it didnt display well when it was changed into symbols meaning there was little variance in size or that the data didnt vary enough. I learned in the process of making this map that it is very easy to make a map to cluttered and over complicated. I was forced many times to downsize to overall size of the symbols  so that the workspace did not feel to cluttered. I also chose not to go with an inset legend since i had a lot of open space on the right side of my map that needed to be filled to maintain visual balance.

exercise 6 chloropleth map of louisiana

Chloropleth Map of Louisiana population claiming American Ancestary

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This chloropleth map displays the number of people in Louisiana counties clamming American Ancestary. This data was US Census data that was given to us by our instructor to complete this map. We then had to use this date and create class breaks fror the data classifying them into a Quintile class break or Equal interval class break by both total number which is represented by the green and percentage which is represented by the pink/magenta color . This was probably the second hardest portion of the exercise, figuring out where the class breaks lie so that it would come out equal for 5 different classes. Though the hardest part of the exercise was figuring out where all the counties were since the area was unfamiliar to myself.

exercise 4 global positioning sysytems

GPS Mapping

This exercise required us to utilize a GPS unit  and collect data waypoints of a feature that we wanted to map. ( a handheld E-trex unit was used to obtain my data) The only guidelines we had were that we had to have at least 30 points mapped and that we were limited to the Eau Claire area. We took the information collected and inputted it into ARCMAP overlayed on  top of a satalite map of the area. The data that is mapped in my particular map is the location of some geocaches in the Eau Claire area. I with the help of a friend who was much more veresd in geocaching took a day and walked around and mapped each point where we found the particular chache. the biggest pitfall in this  project was figuring our how to input the data into arcmap in the first place but once that was figured out the rest went very smoothly.

exercise 3 south america projections

Multiple Map projections of South America

For this exercise we were required to use ARCMAP to obtain multiple different projections of South America and arange them on the same illustrator document. This was our first project that required the use of ARCMAP so it was a challange figuring out how to use the program and keeping all the projections the same scale and size so the would line up correctly in the end. We were then required to write how changing the projection changed how the land was viewed and what they would be best suited for mapping (small,medium or large scale)

exercise 2 reference map of Africa

Africa Refernce Map

The purpose of this project was to use a base map given of Africa and utilize it to create our own reference map using colors and labeling that we came up with. We were given all the lables that had to be included on the map along with general guidlines for map making as it was our first map that was made for the class. The biggest issue with this project was decing how large to make labels for countries, water bodies and physical features that would keep them uniform while still being able to fit them in a clean manor within the neatline of the map.