GIS4007 - Module 1 - Evaluating Maps

As this is the start of this Cartography course, understanding map aesthetic and principles is the building block to creating your own cartographic maps.  For the first Module, we were tasked with evaluating and critiquing maps that we can personally choose. Two maps were chosen, one being a well-designed map, and the other being a poorly-designed map. In analyzing these chosen maps, we should start to think about and shape our own cartographic style, while also learning the principles that make maps "well-designed". The principles that we are following and using to critique our maps are the "20 Tufteisms from The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". 

In the process of finding the maps I wanted to evaluate, I first found this hand drawn map of Todilto Park By Norton Allen from 1952. 

Source: David Rumsey Collection

I really enjoyed this map, I thought it looked beautiful and was ready to make it my well-designed map to talk about. Though after looking further into it, and following some of the Tufteisms, I thought that the map was really lacking some important information that would make it a "good" map. That's not to say that it is a bad example of a map. I do believe however, there are poor choices made by not putting certain elements within it.

These thoughts then made me look into more current day maps of Todilto park, NM. I eventually stumbled across a map made by The United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Source: USGS Topographic Map of Todilto Park, NM

Although the map by USGS lacked the aesthetic that Allen portrays, it included so much more data and information that made it, personally to me, a much more “well-designed” map. Even with how much information this map provides, it still is succinct and understandable.  

Though, I truly think that if Allen had included some of the important map elements like a scale bar or legend, then it would be an incredibly well designed map. If anything, I learned that maps have adapted over time and are sometimes made for specific purposes. The map by Allen is artistic and has anthropologic elements that may make it useful to artists and anthropologists, but it most likely wouldn't be used for navigation since it isn't specific enough. The map by USGS is data driven and utilitarian, making it extremely useful for navigating and land surveying, but it lacks an aesthetic that makes Allen's map so charming. In building my cartographic style, I would like to find a sort of middle ground, connecting the principles that make both of these maps good, and making a map that is great.