Making Maps: A Visual Guide to Map Design for GIS

by John Krygier, Denis Wood

Lauded for its accessibility and beautiful design, this text has given thousands of students and professionals the tools to create effective, compelling maps. Using a wealth of illustrations--with 74 in full color--to elucidate each concisely presented point, the revised and updated third edition continues to emphasize how design choices relate to the reasons for making a map and its intended purpose. All components of map making are covered: titles, labels, legends, visual hierarchy, font selection, how to turn phenomena into visual data, data organization, symbolization, and more. Innovative pedagogical features include a short graphic novella, good design/poor design map examples, end-of-chapter suggestions for further reading, and an annotated map examplar that runs throughout the book.

New to This Edition
*Expanded coverage of using mobile digital devices to collect data for maps, including discussions of location services and locational privacy.
*New and revised topics: how to do sketch maps, how map categories and symbols have changed over time, designing maps on desktop computers and mobile devices, human perception and color, and more.
*Separate, expanded chapter on map symbol abstraction.
*Additional case studies of compelling phenomena such as children's traffic fatalities based on race, the spread of tropical diseases, and the 2012 presidential election.
*Many additional color illustrations.

Genres: Geography, Maps, Reference, Design, Cartography

293 pages, Paperback

First published August 17, 2005

Reviews

[Manuel Frias · Rating 4 out of 5]

GIS, cartography and geography teachers: show this book to your students! They will appreciate! Highly graphic and didactic, it is an excellent start for people learning the map design basics.

Well, not only for starters. GIS experts can also learn since the design aspects of the map are often forgotten or not considered important (how many of them have read Tufte?).

I liked very much the bibliography at the end of each chapter which inspires you to read more about each subject.

The illustrations and maps are most of them in black and white. That surprised me and somehow annoyed me. Until I read the last page: "...we have limited the use of color to keep down its cost.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally enjoyed this book. In a few chapters the authors assume the reader has enough expertise that they skim too much to be truly informative. Their repeated insistence to "use your brain" gets really annoying. Overall, this was a fun and informative read, despite implying that its readers are a little dim.

[Chipp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent visual guide to map-making. Evening read for sure.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best map-making book ever.

[Avid Septiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good ideas here but eye-poppingly bad graphics and graphic design! The choice of fonts, the layout, etc. is unbelievably terrible.