GIS4043L Own Your Map - Week 2 Lab

This is week 2 of GIS4043L, getting even more exciting!  This week's laboratory assignment was to create a professional looking map that was easy to read and understand.  The following is what I worked on this week.

Process Summary Description

1)      Quick review of GIS4043L Own Your Map Lab instructions to understand laboratory requirements.

2)      Opened up GIS Software and retrieved this week’s laboratory folder, “OwnYourMap.zip” and saved to my s: drive.

3)      Using instructions provided in lab instructions, opened up Arc Catalog and began to explore metadata in order to understand how to complete metadata table in process summary template for this and future labs.

4)      Moved to ArcMap where I created my  map by following the step-by-step process provided in the week’s lab instructions – see summary and rationale below.

a)      Began with a basic layout of my map.  Layout view was selected over data view as it gives the cartographer an idea of the product in printable area while data view is best for analyzing and editing data. The page was then set up to landscape using the File, page and print setup commands.

b)      Proceeded to incorporate the 8 essential map elements (in order shown) from the Insert Menu; neatline, title, legend, north arrow (to show direction), scale (using miles for all American map production efforts), cartographer’s name (my name), date and data source. 

c)       Neatline:  I selected an inside margin with a gap of 10 and a border of 2.0 point.  Then added a background with a rectangular gradient hue and a drop shadow that is grey 60% in color.  The data frame was then fitted to my page size.  A 7.5 X 10 ratio was used for the 8.5 x 11 page and it was then aligned to margins and to center as well as to Vertical center.  These adjustments created for an appealing view of the map without taking away from the actual map.

d)      Title: A simple title, “Florida Cities” that was capitalized and formatted to Arial 16 and bold font.

e)      Legend: The legend titles were spelled out in full so that they are easy to understand.  Width of 30pt and a Height of 15pt with a horizontal line and rectangular area.  Yellow was selected for the background color to blend in with the map’s background and a 1.0pt black border frame was inserted – simple yet effective.  The Legend was positioned to the South west of the Map yet close enough to the map without overlaying it.  The title “Legend” was removed by unchecking the “show” box under the Legend tab in properties view.

f)       North Arrow:  ESRI North 95 design, size 58 and Black.  Just something different yet simple,  again to avoid distracting from the map.  Positioned in line with the title, top north east corner of the map for balance of the overall map.

g)      Scale:  Alternating Scale Bar 1, Arial 10, Black.

h)      Name and date: see map.  Positioned as the most bottom item on the page as it acts as a signature to the document.

i)        Data Source:  FGDL 2004, 2008.  Positioned right below the scale and just above the name and date.

5)      Made an effort to save my work periodically to avoid losing it in the case of an unexpected shutdown.

6)      I then exported the final map as a JPEG file to my s: drive, saving the file by title and an addition of my initials and archived the file to an external drive.

The entire process (including metadata table and draft of the process summary) took about 3 hours.