GIS 6005 Lab 3: Typography

I went through several rounds of experimentation in order to get the right combination of legibility and visual hierarchy for each of the map features. Starting with the water features of San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate, I wanted to use fairly standard font/color combinations for water features. I chose the built-in 'coastal features' symbol option that converted the labels to blue italicized Arial font with extra spacing. I made San Francisco Bay larger due to its larger size, and I used the Draw toolbar to rotate the labels to align with their orientations and to fit within the map. My label for Lake Merced, however, was created manually by changing the font color to blue and italicizing. I increased character spacing only slightly in order to fit within map. I also applied a white halo of 0.5 to allow the text to stand out from the background.

The San Francisco label needed to be prominent without dominating the layout. I maintained the Arial font, increased the size to 14, changed the style to Bold, and applied a halo of 0.5. I placed the label in the center of the map; this will naturally be one of the first labels a viewer is drawn to, and it also happens to be in an area of the map without competing labels.

I treated Marin Peninsula as a landform. After experimentation, I settled on a dark grey (70%) Arial text with increased character spacing (40) and a light grey (20%) halo. The combination of grey text and grey halo allows the label to stand out from the green park background without contrasting as intensely as a black/white combination would. I used the Spline Text tool from the Draw toolbar to create the moderately curved text that roughly follows the curve of the peninsula.

I kept the labels for Treasure Island and Angel Island as simple Arial text with no halo. The text stands out from the blue background without a halo or other alteration. Also, given the placement of the islands away from other features and labels, a placement to the upper right clearly labels each island without the need for pointers or having the labels directly on the features. I also kept Sausalito relatively simple, but its location required a halo as well as placement directly on it. I experimented with rotating the text to better fit the feature, but this never looked right to my eye.

The parks were a challenge due to their relatively small size and location near other features and labels. I began by fitting the text within the features for Golden Gate Park and the Presidio of San Francisco, but this was a tight fit . This also obscured the features themselves in the process. Instead, I moved the text away from each park and used the Draw toolbar to create a simple line pointing from the label to the feature. This eliminates any confusion of what the text is labelling, and the consistency of style works well. I used the same style for the Golden Gate Bridge; the bridge feature is far too small for a directly placed label, and it fits well with the park style.

Keeping the general labelling style simple, I directly placed the text for Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and the San Miguel Hills on the feature areas with haloed Arial text. The halo was necessary to allow the labels to stand out from the streets symbology underneath. I used the same text style for Twin Peaks, only adding a small pointer line to more clearly indicate the feature area.