GIS3015: Cartographic Skills - Week 4 Lab Assignment

In this week's lab, we created a map of Ward 7 Public Schools. Washington, D.C. We implemented Gestalts' Principles by having a visual hierarchy, contrast, figure-ground and balance to make our map more visually pleasing to the eyes. We created a inset map and map extent to show where Ward 7 is in Washington, D.C. We have become more familiar in the use of ArcMap as well.

In my map, I am displaying area in Washington, D.C. known as Ward 7. The data that I am presenting in Ward 7 is of the public schools that are located within said ward. I have labeled some of the neighborhood clusters in Ward 7 along with major roadways that pass through the area. I also placed symbol markers where the schools are located on the map. I then used a legend to identify what each symbol means.
This is how I applied Gestalts' Principles into my map:

1. I implemented Visual Hierarchy by having the title background  color dark gray and made the type color as white to give it a nice contrast which allows me to show emphasizes on the title. I also chose bright colors for the school markers to help locate and differentiate between the education levels of the schools. 
2. I achieved contrast in my map by having different sized markers for each level of school education. I made the elementary school symbol a size 20,middle school size 25, and high school size 30. I also made the three levels of school education different colors by assigning elementary as blue, middle school red and high school green. 
3.  I incorporated balance in my map design by trying not to make my map too top heavy or bottom heavy with data. I have placed the title and the inset map on the top of the map which is some of the more important map elements. I then placed the north arrow, scale bar, legend and other information towards the bottom right of the map to create more balance to the map. 
4. I played with the color palette to help me establish a figure-ground relationship on my map. I assigned a light gray color to the Ward 7 area and had the Washington, D.C. area as a darker gray. This helped me direct the map reader’s attention to Ward 7 area.
   

For this map, I used the software ArcMap to create the map from the dataset that was provided by the school. The tools I used throughout the map making process are the Geoprocessing Clip tool to clip the public school data to Ward 7, the Symbol Selector to place appropriate markers on the schools, the Label tab in Layer Properties which helped me label the neighborhood clusters and place mask behind the text, and Splined Text tool that allow me to have a curve in my text line.