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| Lab 1: City of Austin recreation opportunities map. |
Visual contrast: The requirements for the lab drove some of
my choices in addressing the five design principles. Having only Travis County
as the displayed map boundary made contrast with the background relatively
simple. I chose beige with 20% transparency as a muted color for the county
that would bring it out from the background while allowing for the other
features to maintain contrast on top. The colors and outline of the other
features were chosen to contrast with the Travis County polygon without
dominating the layout.
Legibility:
I sized the text of the title and legend to maintain legibility without taking
up too much space in the layout. There was a problem with recognizing the
extent and locations of golf courses and waterways, so I experimented with
various outline options. I ended up using minimal outlines (0.4 mm) of the same
color as the main symbol; this allows
for much greater legibility for both symbols without cluttering the map
the way a darker outline would.
Figure-ground
organization: This wasn't a huge consideration since there were so few elements
to include and no basemap beyond Travis County. I experimented with various
colors for the layout background, but each one conflicted with Travis County; I
would have needed to make Travis County a more prominent color to make it stand
out from any colored background, and that would have created issues with making
the rest of the (more important) symbology stand out.
Hierarchical
organization: The purpose of the map is to highlight the locations of
recreation opportunities, so the layers for recreation centers, waterways, and
golf courses are given prominence. The raw umber triangles stand out from the
tan background better than the original circles I used, and the use of outlines
of the same color around golf courses and water bodies bring them forward
visually. Roads are important, too, and are prominent in the layout but not
dominating by being set to 50% grey. The legend was reordered to reflect the
level of importance for each item.
Balance:
A landscape orientation was chosen in order to balance the blank space around
the Travis County map. The large title text in the upper right corner is
balanced by the moderately-sized legend and grey scale bar in the lower left
corner. The upper left of the Travis County map extends a little further than
the lower right, so the grey orientation arrow and author/date/source text make
up for the extra blank space.
