Presentation Topics

• Introduction & announcements

Module requirements

• Task
• Lab

Task

In the past two decades, Google Street View gives people – and mapmakers – an unprecedented ground-level perspective of the landscape. How might this platform help us with mapping?

Timelapse of Google Street View coverage source: Wikipedia

With Street View, we can quickly get a sense of climate, land use, architecture, and the ephemera of everyday life. This could inspire design themes for your map. If you make a map of city you have never visited, you would likely want to use Street View to “field check” significant map features. If maps are to be persuasive, shouldn’t they reflect the lived experiences of the places mapped?

However, we can be critical of Street View. The platform has obvious privacy implications, especially for lower income neighborhoods which can’t hide behind vast frontages of greenery. This might reinforce stereotypes for armchair explorers. During the early days of Street View, the platform was criticized for capturing people in compromising situations. Google has since blurred faces and license plates, but the platform still raises questions about surveillance and privacy. As with any technology, it is important to be critical of its use and how it might bias our understanding of places we haven’t visited.

Twin neighborhoods

Ok, let’s begin our task. We will use an unorthodox method to find “twin” neighborhoods in Lexington, explore them with Google Street View, and compare them to areas on campus that you frequent. The method is straightforward: We’ll fold a map of Lexington in half, punch a hole through the map where we live or work on campus, and then find the reflected location on the other side of the map. This reflection is the twin. Some initial questions might be: How different is this location from where we live or work? What do these differences tell us about Lexington’s neighborhoods and their history?

Our approach is similar the Folded Map Project, an art project to generate discussion about segregation and housing disparity in Chicago. The project’s creator, Tonika Johnson, paired residents from the city’s north and south sides and asked them to visit each other’s homes. Part of the discussion centered on the historical practice of “redlining”, a discriminatory practice that denied loans to people of color (and other minorities) and investment in “high risk” neighborhoods. The practice was common in the 1930s and 1940s, and the federal government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created maps to identify these neighborhoods. The legacy of this practice is still evident today – neighborhoods that saw investment during this period faired better than those that didn’t.

To complete our exercise, we need a line on which to fold our map. You might know of a dividing line in your hometown, e.g., train tracks that split your town into two geographical imaginations. While this line might be arbitrarily chosen, we’ll use Main Street, a major thoroughfare that runs through the heart of Lexington. Can you find Main Street on this HOLC’s map of Lexington neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s?

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Residential Security Map, 1938 (Enlarge)

We can observe from this map, the University of Kentucky campus was small in 1938 and bounded by neighborhoods graded in the lowest classes. Since that time, and especially in the last decade, the university has experienced tremendous investment in new dormitories and campus amenities, like the Gatton Student Center. The university’s growth has also impacted surrounding neighborhoods, displacing many long-time residents and creating enclaves of (often expensive) off-campus housing for students. The campus continues to grow.

Let’s take a look at the map we’ll use for this task. It is a minimal map showing building footprints, the road network, and Main Street prominently in red.

Lexington building footprints with Main Street highlighted (Enlarge or print)

While you may print this map and do the following exercise on your own, this task will be done in recitation with provided paper maps.

Finding the twin location

Fold this map along the red line and look at the side showing campus. You will then locate a place on campus where you spend a lot of time, let’s say your dormitory or where you recreate. If you live off-campus, and it is shown on this map, you can select that location. Once you have selected your location on the campus side of the map, push a paper clip through that point, flip the map over, and note the reflected location.

For example, let’s find Patterson Office Tower’s Main Street reflection. Push a pin through POT and photograph the other side of the folded map.

Patterson Office Tower reflection photographed

Next, visit Google Maps and zoom into the location you found on the other side of the map. You’ll need to zoom close enough to see the building footprints to make a match.

Locate the area using Google Maps, zoomed in

Google Street View

Enable Google Street View and tour the area. Can you find a grocery, bank, or restaurant nearby? How are the sidewalks and streets? What is the age and condition of the buildings? Are there any parks or green spaces? What types of vegetation do you see? Now, imagine living in this neighborhood. Who would be your neighbors? How does this are compare to where you grew up or where you live now? Finally, explore at different times using Street View’s See more dates time feature. How has this area changed over time?

Next, screen capture two Google Street View images showing the your selected area and the reflected area you found on the other side of the map. You can use the Snipping Tool on Windows or Command-Shift-4 on Mac to capture the images.

Google Street View of Patterson Office Tower

Google Street View of Patterson Office Tower twin

Ok, let’s turn to making a submission for this task.

Completing the task

After you complete the above section, make sure you do the following to finish this task:

Submitting the task

Upload your screen captures and text to the Module 5 task on Canvas by the published due date. (0.5 points for each screen capture and 2 points for the response.)

After this task, take a moment to visit your “twin” in person. See how it compares to Street View and the place it helped create in your imagination.

Lab

In the previous module we discovered what makes an effective map. In this module, we’ll explore how to design a map that that is also persuasive. A map might seem persuasive if its design appears clean and professional – these map makers know what they are doing! Another approach is to make bold or unorthodox design choices that draw attention to the map or project. In this lab, we’ll explore design choices that can engage the viewer and help tell our story.

Before you begin working through the lab, please note that our steps do not culminate in a final map for submission. Rather, the lab is a series of exercises demonstrating common yet high-value techniques for customizing map layers and the layout. The lab is divided into four parts: selecting typefaces and feature labeling; selecting features from a layer for unique symbology; changing the figure-ground relationship; and adding photographs and call-out arrows to the layout. Each part will require you to make choices that can significantly impact the map’s readability and visual appeal.

With mastery of these four parts (and using skills from previous labs), you’ll be well on your way to creating unique, compelling maps. Those are the maps that get noticed and remembered. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Typefaces
  • Labeling features
• Selecting single features for symbology
• Changing the figure-ground relationship
• Adding a photograph and call-out arrow to the layout
• Assignment: BluDDCon Fantasy Map
  • Video: 8 min
  • Deliverables
  • Submitting the assignment
• Addendum: Advanced labeling & extra credit
• Extra credit: BluDDCon map (+3 points)
  • Video: 25 min
  • Deliverables

Introduction

A persuasive map is one that is designed to influence the viewer’s opinion and possibly take action, like voting for a candidate or supporting a cause. It also may be designed to persuade the viewer to think differently about a topic, like the impact of climate change or the distribution of wealth. Persuasion is not necessarily bad, but it is important to understand the author’s intent and whether they are transparent with their data and methods.

All good persuasive maps start with one thing in common: They grab the viewer’s attention. After that, the map’s story unfolds in its cartographic design (i.e., skillful use of visual variables), proper employment of map elements, and a balanced layout with strong visual hierarchy. So the question becomes how do we grab the viewer’s attention? We’ll explore this question by selecting unique typefaces and fine tuning our page’s visual hierarchy.

Typefaces

Typefaces are a powerful tool for map makers. They can be used to convey a map’s theme, like a map of the Old West that uses a typeface that looks like it was printed on a letterpress. They can also be used to convey a map’s tone, like a map of a city’s nightlife that uses a typeface that looks like neon lights.

In fact, a map could be made entirely of text. Can you recognize this US city represented in this map?

A map of Chicago

A typeface is a collection of fonts that share a common design. A font is a specific style of a typeface. For example, the typeface Helvetica has many fonts, like Helvetica Bold and Helvetica Italic. Type designers create typefaces and fonts, and they are often inspired by historical typefaces. Helvetica, one of the most popular commercial typefaces, was inspired by the typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk, which was designed in 1890s.

Characteristics of a font

Type design is concerned with modifying font characteristics to achieve legibility while creating a unique style. Legibility is the ease with which a reader can distinguish one letter from another; a function of the font’s characteristics. We broadly group typefaces into two categories: serif and sans serif. Serif typefaces have small lines at the end of each stroke, while sans serif typefaces do not.

As a map maker, we often don’t create fonts from scratch, but rather choose ones that we like and are legible. After that, we are concerned about making text on our maps readable. Readability is the ease with which a reader can recognize words, sentences, and paragraphs. It is a function of the font’s size, spacing, and line length. Thankfully, we have some style conventions we can follow.

Mapping typeface style conventions

While there are no hard and fast rules in selecting and styling typefaces, our goal is make our maps readable and engaging. The first step is selecting a sans serif and serif typefaces that we’ll use for the majority of our map’s text. Then we’ll select a few accent typefaces that we’ll use sparingly to draw attention to specific map elements. We’ll visit Google Fonts to find our typefaces, however, other sites like DaFont and Font Squirrel are good resources. Using your linkblue login for Adobe Creative Cloud, you can use certain fonts from Adobe Fonts.

Ok, let’s get started. The workflow is pretty simple. Visit Google Fonts, search for typefaces, download them, and then install them on your computer. The file downloaded from Google Fonts will be a zipped file that should be extracted first. Inside the extracted folder, you’ll find the font files with the .ttf file extension.

Downloading Google Fonts

Feel free to explore and install other typefaces. It’s fun to test different font pairings and see how they look on the page. Next, we’ll do just that.

Showing font specimens in a layout

Keep iterating over different typefaces with the goal of discovering unique combinations. The end result might be a mark you could use for identity on your layouts.

Searching for unique font pairings

Labeling features

Labeling features on the map is a common map making activity. But, it is one of the most difficult ones. Good label placement increases readability through visually balanced, intuitive, and predictable placement.

Labeling vector features

We’ll explore QGIS’s Map Canvas labeling engine to automatically place labels on the map from a vector layer’s attribute table. In Layout, we’ll use layout elements to add text to our final layout. Let’s get some data for Lexington streets and label them. We’ll download an archive of the city’s street and buildings from Openstreetmap.org and then import them into QGIS. We’ll then access the label engine in QGIS’s Layer Styling panel.

Symbolize highway layer, rotate canvas, and project to EPSG: 3089

QGIS labeling engine places street names on the map using the highway attribute name. The engine dynamically places labels based on an algorithm that considers the map’s scale and the feature’s geometry. The addendum explores how to adjust the label’s placement and style. For now, inspect the highway layer’s labeling options, and in particular, the Text, Placement and Buffer tabs.

Inspect the three labeling tab settings

The label’s buffer color matches the background color and the text color is lighter than the road color. This effect makes the road name appear to knock out the road below it. The placement tab is set to Curve so that labels curve over the road centerline. Experiment with these tabs to see how the labels change.

Add another layer to practice labeling. In this example, add the Public_Schools layer and label the buildings with their NAME attribute. Try to make the labels readable through font, color, and buffer properties.

Add another layer to practice labeling

When you are finished experimenting with labeling, remove the Public_Schools layer and save your project.

Selecting single features for symbology

Often we need to select a few features from a layer to apply a different symbology. If we don’t have attributes through which we can filter the features, we can use the Select tool to manually select the features. After selection, we can save the feature(s) as a new layer and apply a different symbology. Then, we could even label the features (as shown above) to make them stand out on the map.

Tip: When using the Select tool, you can pan the map with a Spacebar + mouse move.

Select two features and export and save as GeoJSON

Changing the figure-ground relationship

The figure-ground relationship is a design principle that describes the relationship between the foreground and background of a map. The foreground is the area of the map that is the focus of the viewer’s attention, while the background is the area that is not – it’s area for resting the eyes.

By default, QGIS uses a white background for the map canvas. This is a good choice for printed maps, but most maps today are viewed on a screen. The “dark mode” aesthetic is popular in many applications, and has been shown to reduce eye strain and power consumption on mobile devices. Another dark mode advantage is that it helps photographs and other colorful elements stand out. We’ll explore this idea by adding a photograph to our map and changing the background color of the map canvas.

The first step in reversing the figure-ground relationship is to change the background color of the map canvas. We’ll do this by changing the map canvas’s Background color in the Project Properties > General tab.

Changing the map canvas background color

Now, we need to change the placed map canvas in our layout to use the same color. Switch to the layout and select the map canvas.

Changing the layout background color

OK, now the tough part. We need to revisit each layer and labeling options and make adjustments to their colors. The label’s buffer color needs to match the background color and text color should be lighter than the road color. The buildings layer should be darker than roads but lighter than the background. Got it?

Changing the layer colors in new figure-ground relationship

By changing the background color, we now have more options for customizing our design.

Adding a photograph and call-out arrow to the layout

Adding a photograph to a layout is a great way to add visual interest to a map. We can even use a photograph as a “call out” to highlight a specific location on the map. We’ll use a Google Street View photograph of Patterson Office Tower (saved in the same folder as our spatial data) and highlight the location of the photograph with an arrow on the map.

The following screenshots show how to add the elements to the layout.

Add a picture and change its frame color

Add an arrow pointing to Patterson Office Tower

Finally, we need to add a title, subtitle scale bar, and north arrow to the layout. The title should be bold and stand out against the dark background. Develop a strong visual hierarchy that guides the viewer’s eye to the most important elements on the map.

Finish layout with necessary elements

Finally, continue experimenting with QGIS layout tools. Use the Add Shape tool to add a transparent rectangles behind the text to make it stand out. You can manually place custom markers using the Add Marker tool. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination. :)

OK, let’s move on to the assignment. You will employ these skills to make a presentation-ready map that asks us to believe in a fantasy.

Assignment: BluDDCon Fantasy Map

The BluDDCon, the Bluegrass Dungeons & Dragons Convention, is holding their annual competitive games at the Loudoun House in Castlewood Park. They need fantasy maps that explore a futuristic or post-apocalyptic Lexington. They have a data file, flooded-lexington.zip, that shows the region after runaway global warming raised sea levels over 1,000 feet. However, you can use any base map you like.

You’ll first need to sketch out a story. What changes have occurred in the fantasy future? How did it happen? What are people doing to survive? What new technologies have been developed?

Fantasy mapping has no rules except one: Do not copy the example fantasy map provided in this documentation. There is another rule: Have fun. The BluDDCon organizers want to see your creativity and storytelling skills. They want to be inspired by your vision of the future.

Port Wildcat after meltdown

In this assignment, you will be asked to use Generative AI technology to create images and text that develop your story. There are many tools available, like DALL·E 3 and Claude.ai, that can help you create content. We have a discussion forum that lists some of these tools and how to use them. Please feel free to share your GenAI tools and techniques with your classmates.

Save your QGIS project often via the menu item Project > Save.

Video: 8 min

Deliverables

Please follow these requirements for the assignment:

1. Create an 11 x 17 inch layout using one of the flooded base map layers (campus-flooded.tif or region-flooded.tif). Alternatively, you can make your own fantasy base map. (1 point)
2. Add three images to the layout, made with Generative AI technology, that develop your story. (2 points)
3. Add a narrative (perhaps inspired by Generative AI) that explains what happened. (2 point)
4. Add one additional vector layer. Tip: select one building footprint on campus and export to a new layer. (1 point)
5. Add a captivating title and subtitle using an accent typeface. (1 point)
6. Include a scale bar, north arrow, and attribution (including OpenStreetMap, the generative AI technology that was used, and your name or alias. Are you YodasMaps?). (1 point)
7. Make sure your layout text is grammatically correct and free of speling errors. (2 points)
8. Export the layout as a GeoPDF file.
9. Name the file bluddcon-future-linkblue.pdf and replace linkblue with your linkblue name. For example, bluddcon-future-jabr01.pdf.

Note: The example QGIS project contains two polygon layers (abandoned-buildings.geojson and fallout-zone.geojson), layout, and narrative created exclusively for the that project. Do not use them. The example is provided to give you an idea of what is possible using techniques from this lab. Tip: the above video shows how to create new spatial data layers from scratch.

Submitting the assignment

Upload your PDF file to the Module 5 assignment on Canvas by the published due date. If you continue through the addendum and extra credit, upload both PDF files in two separate submissions. Make note in a submission comment that you are going for extra credit.

Happy visions of the future!

Addendum: Advanced labeling & extra credit

We can manually place labels on the map, but this is time consuming and often results in a cluttered map. Instead, we’ll use QGIS’s labeling engine to automatically place labels on the map from a vector layer’s attribute table. However, if we wanted precisely placed labels, we would need use a different tool, like Adobe Illustrator. That’s application is explored in our GEO 305 & 405 courses.

Let’s return to our lexington-main-street project and create a new QGIS document. We’ll then access the label engine in QGIS’s Layer Styling panel.

Add layers, rotate canvas, and project to EPSG: 3089

Next, make sure the highway layer is selected and click on the Labels icon in the Layer Styling panel to initiate feature labeling. The attribute that contains the name of the street is called name. We’ll use this attribute to label the streets. The style of text is up to you, but think about the typeface we discussed earlier.

First step in labeling line layers

How’s it look? Not too well at this step. We need to adjust the placement of the labels. We’ll do this by adjusting the label’s Placement and then add a halo Buffer.

Curving labels on line

Getting better, but it is hard to read the dark text over a dark line. We need to “knock out” the line below the label. We’ll do this by adding a halo around the text.

Adding a halo buffer for labels

To finish labeling, we need to test whether the labels are readable at our target scale with a map canvas placed in a layout. If the labels are easily readable at 400%, the labels can be read in most printed applications. If not, we’ll adjust the label’s size and buffer width to make them readable.

Check readability of labels and make changes accordingly

Here we have better labeling than the default settings. Depending on your purpose and the type of feature being labeled, the labeling options could vary dramatically. For example, labeling a point layer of cities would require a different approach than labeling a line layer of streets.

Ok, save your map project. You are now ready to complete the extra credit assignment.

Extra credit: BluDDCon map (+3 points)

The BluDDCon, the Bluegrass Dungeons & Dragons Convention, is holding their annual competitive games at the Loudoun House in Castlewood Park (201 Castlewood Dr, Lexington, KY 40505). They need a poster showing this location on a map with a photograph of the Loudoun House, which can be taken in-person or from Google Street View. They want an arrow from the photograph pointing this impressive Gothic style villa. The map should show streets with labels and part of the University of Kentucky campus. The map should be 11 x 17 inches and include a bold title and layout. You should add additional map elements as needed.

Save your QGIS project often via the menu item Project > Save.

Video: 25 min

Deliverables

Please follow these requirements for the assignment:

1. Create an 11 x 17 inch layout using the highway and buildings layers. Make sure to show both the Loudoun House and Willy T. Young Library on campus.
2. Add labels for the highway layer that curve over the highway lines and are clearly readable.
3. Add a photograph of the Loudoun House and an arrow pointing to the building.
4. Add the title, “Bluegrass Dungeons & Dragons Convention” with an accent typeface
5. Add the title, “Loudoun House, Castlewood Park” with another typeface.
6. Include a scale bar, north arrow, and attribution (including one for Openstreetmap.org).
7. Export the layout as a GeoPDF file.
8. Name the file bluddcon-linkblue.pdf and replace linkblue with your linkblue name. For example, bluddcon-jabr01.pdf.

Note: To receive full credit for this extra credit assignment, the design should be unique and engaging while not using the provided example layout and map canvas. You should create a new layout and map canvas from scratch.

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