Week 2 Lab- Own Your Map!

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This week’s lab allowed us to go a bit deeper in customizing a map in ArcMap. Last week we had the opportunity to explore feature placement and get a feel for prioritizing the information needed. This exercise was a challenge in that it introduced how to add an inset map while still communicating where it fits in a regional map, or part of it. The more thought I put into how it could be read by a random person, the more complex something such as color selection became. ...Not that I was stuck here for two hours. But it was something new I learned while going through the steps. This was important. More important though was focusing on the goal of this map, which was to direct someone to the UWF campus on a general map of Escambia County in Florida.
I found the steps in customizing land features, such as roads and rivers, very useful. To be honest, I had not put that much weight into selecting a clear color choice for these before. But they’re equally significant to stand out against the background as the destination. I enjoyed the portion of this exercise that required going through Meta Data as it presented another opportunity in digging into a data sets information and allowed for better understanding of where to find specific details. It's something I'm slowly getting used to.

Overall I think the big take away from this exercise was also an exercise in envisioning what your goal is (for the map) and having an idea of what color tones fit what you want to communicate.


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