Map-Making

At the beginning of today's class, we were in The Pit again for another lecture, with this one being all about map-making. I had been delaying making my map until I had been informed of all we needed to know about making maps. There were a few interesting examples that popped up in the slideshow presentation, especially the designs for the Underground Railway Tracks. So during the class, I started to work on making a map, making sure I kept my stylistic approach from my other spreads consistent, and incorporated it into this spread as well.  Below you can see my first two concepts for my map, with a small description below each one.

The above map was my initial concept. I tried to continue the use of the creamy coloured background, and decided to try having the map in the darker blue colour that has been used on a few of my spreads, mainly the cover page and the 'journey planner' spread. However, there were a few things that I didn't like about this spread. The destinations on the map, in particular the red area for Red Rocks, and the green area for Mount Victoria, were a lot harder to see than it should have been. Also, I didn't like how the cityscape was so long across the top, it could've done with being a bit shorter for sure. So I went and tried reversing the map's colours.

Above, is my slight development from my initial concept. It consists of a creamy coloured map reversed out of the darker blueish background. This definitely makes the destinations easier to see on the map, and the contours of hills etc look a lot more interesting. However, one thing I'm not too fond of is how in all of my destination spreads, I have the text on the left, yet this spread it is on the right. So later on today I will develop this and make the necessary changes. I also feel like it doesn't look too good having the distinctive divide in between the map and the bodies of text, it makes them feel like they are separate from each other, with the gap between them also being too big.

Tonight I will work on developing these maps again, so I can print it out and have a more refined map for tomorrows class which will be our last chance for proper feedback and critiques before printing during the remainder of the week. I feel like I'm coming to the end of my design, as I am very happy with how all of my spreads are looking. Once my map has been refined, I will look to pick out all of the smaller, yet critical parts of my spreads that I can improve, and then find ways to improve them. I will post another blog post later on tonight.