GIS5007 Module 1: Map Critique

Module 1 covered a brief introduction to Cartography, its history, and map design principles. I grew up Catholic, so hearing about the 20 Tufteisms instantly made me think of this being the Cartographer's 20 Commandments. Haha!

Anyways, this week's lab required students to find 2 maps, one deemed well-designed and the other poorly designed, and critique them. I spun around several ideas in my head. At first, I really did want to do a map from my childhood, like something in a video game; however, I couldn't find a decent enough example that I wanted to go through with. The map I chose, which is well-designed, is one that I see quite frequently when I want to go on a nice stroll. And that is Cascades Park in Tallahassee, Florida.

Cascades Park in Tallahassee, FL. It features all the points of interest that visitors can visit, as well as amenities, parking, and additional information such as hours of operation and rules.

The Cascades Park map above is quite beautiful! I love the hand-drawn and colored aesthetic of its basemap. It gives a fun, whimsical vibe that just makes you want to explore the park. The fact that only the park is colored in is also very striking -- it leads your eye to the important main star, which is the park itself. The points of interest are all very easy to locate and read from both the map and the legend. The points don't detract from the park details. I'm still able to see what trails I can walk/run. Even though it technically lacks a scale bar, it's not a dealbreaker because it still conveys to the user where to go and what you'll find at certain places in the park. If I wanted to estimate the distance I wish to run, however, that would be a different story since this map couldn't tell me how far to go. Even the placement of the title and the City of Tallahassee logo is in opposing corners, which balances out the layout. The legend takes up a lot of dead space and is unobtrusive to the rest of the map, while the north arrow is not overly large and has its own home in the northeast part of the map. Overall, I really enjoy this map and would love to make something similar since it scratches a creative itch in my brain. If I were to grade it, I'd give it a solid "A". Just some points off for the scale bar.

Now finding a map to critique as the poorly designed one was a bit more difficult for me; however, the good old GIS subreddit got my back -- I was recommended a post in the subreddit R/GIS, which was this map...

The Operation Epic Fury map and its 10-day timeline from the Department of War.

Yes, this is an official map that was used in a briefing of Operation Epic Fury on the news. I didn't catch it live on the news myself, but I'm baffled it was even released. I found it hilarious to read the Reddit comments that also agreed with what I saw on this map and my own thoughts—this was an awful map.

Putting politics aside, it's evident that this map is poorly made. I could go on a rant about this map alone, about how it evokes such disappointment in me that someone got paid to do it, and it was deemed passable enough to be showcased to the public. If I sent this kind of quality work to a client, I would be told to take it back and fix it. Not to mention the shame I would feel submitting this map.

As I offer my critique of this map, please keep in mind that I'm solely critiquing the map itself. I am not commenting based on additional context that was given when they gave the briefing on this map when it was shown on the news. I am taking the map as it is.

Out of the gate, this map is nearly illegible.

You have so many overlapping features and text that it's chaotic and unclear. You have the nuclear sites symbol in the legend overlapping the nearby text, as with the location labels on the basemap. The nuclear sites and the Iranian Air Defenses layers are both underneath the U.S./Israeli strikes -- you can barely see the nuclear sites themselves because of this. There are so many features that are either red or yellow. It would help make them distinct by changing some colors, too.

To get into the nitty-gritty of the symbols, there is a clear bias for the U.S./Israeli strikes compared to the Iranian strikes. Why do the U.S./Israeli strikes have a radius to them when the Iranian ones don't? Are we trying to evoke the influence/impact that the U.S./Israeli strikes had across Iran? If so, why isn't the same attention to detail given to the Iranian strikes, especially when they look so close to the U.S. bases? Additionally, this map, like the Cascades map, is missing a scale bar. However, omitting a scale bar here is a more egregious error, because I cannot tell the exact size of these U.S./Israeli strikes, which vary in radius. Those radii carry a lot of weight and context.

Speaking of the U.S. bases, I literally did not know that the U.S. flag symbol represented the U.S. Navy fleets until I read a comment in the GIS subreddit. I legit thought they were random flags placed on the map because of how outrageous and unprofessional this map is. Instead of having huge flags, they could have simply used the same symbol for the U.S. bases and naval fleet and labeled it as such in the legend.

The timeline is a cluttered block of text with a random explosion and star icon to accent it, but only in the beginning. There is no need for these extra icons to bloat the already busy timeline. The standardization of the timeline is also brought into question: why do some dates include a time estimate while others only have a date? Are they not as important or was there no actual recorded timestamp for those events? Furthermore, we have a red-dotted typo in the middle of the timeline. "Sonangal" should be "Sonangol" for the "Sonangol Namibe".

Other random details I noticed, the logos for the Department of War and Joint Chiefs of Staff are clipped by the harsh black border around them. The creator couldn't even give them additional space to breathe and standout. Again, if I did something similar to maps I made with my organization's logo, I would be asked fix it. Another random thing, the "JOINT STAFF" text in the bottom center box is an odd purple color. This is the only instance where you see purple text in the map.

Oh, and if you haven't already noticed where the north arrow is -- peekaboo! It's shoved carelessly in the bottom left corner, suffocating against the timeline text.

I could go on ad nauseum with breaking down this map, but I will leave some fun for you as well, fellow map enthusiast. This map gets a "C-" from me, personally. It gets its message across with the U.S. military's operational prowess but breaks a lot of map design principles.