Branding + Identity with Maps
Kate Chanba
15 Minutes
Maps are integral to an organization's branding mix, but often stand alone both visually and conceptually. GIS and marketing departments often function separately, and seldom bring in a cartographic designer to bridge the gap. To demonstrate how useful it is to include them in the design process, I will use the recently developed Arlington County Commuter Services Bicycle Comfort Level Maps as an example. I will also use these maps to discuss strategies that optimize maps for branding and help organizations unify their internal messaging—such as creating descriptive icons and symbology, storytelling, user testing, and using maps for promotion and tourism.
Pretty maps without the price tag: Cartography with just QGIS
Emily Eros, Red Cross
15 Minutes
To produce quality maps for disaster situations, the American Red Cross constantly struggles to balance rapid deadlines with good cartographic design. We also believe in using free and open software whenever possible. Historically, we struggled to make print-ready maps using just QGIS; its print composer isn't intuitive and certain functionalities just aren’t there. So until recently, we used QGIS to process our data and then performed styling in Illustrator. This method works, but adds extra time and complexity that just isn’t realistic in the aftermath of a major earthquake. Over the past year, we’ve channeled our energy into figuring out tricks and processes for doing cartography entirely within Q. In this session, we’ll show how to do some of our favorite styling effects without needing Adobe. We’ll demonstrate how to make the print composer work. And we’ll share some of the limitations we’re still experiencing.
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Re-thinking Maps for the Web
Jon Bowen, National Geographic Maps
20 Minutes
Creating maps for the Web has become unavoidable to modern cartography as the use of mobile devices has risen exponentially. Not only has the size of the canvas changed to that of a playing card, but users expect the map you create to work equally as well on a phone or tablet and everything in-between while on a fast turn around. The challenge now is how to take everything, scale it down or modify it to what the audience expects, and still get the point across. Although interactive is flashy - it's not always the best solution. So let's rethink optimization and design what we can in a realistic timeframe. I will demonstrate and show examples of where we at Nat Geo have weaved together toolsets to intuitively and quickly serve our audience.
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Data Driven Styling for GL Mapping
Molly Lloyd, Mapbox
15 Minutes
In May of this year, Mapbox introduced Data Driven Styling for the open source Mapbox GL JS library. This release opens up new possibilities for map styling at runtime and the ability to build dynamic thematic maps and data visualizations on the fly. This talk will discuss how data driven styling can be used for both dynamic data visualizations and base map design and why data driven styling coupled with other Mapbox GL JS features like efficient vector tiles, symbol clustering, and runtime styling is a milestone for web and mobile mapping technology. I will provide live examples and plenty of resources to allow participants to take advantage of these new features in their work.
Gunpodwer Maps (you know, for kids!)
Nick Martinelli, Foundry
10 Minutes
Alternate titles include, "How we got a university to let us ignite gunpowder on campus, with kids, unsupervised, to make maps." OR, "How we convinced a city to buy our one day $2.5mil insurance policy so we could ignite gunpowder at the local library with kids and make maps." Spoiler Alert: I have no idea really, we just did it and people got engaged, and we got to talk about maps with a bunch of kids and their parents, which was super. The practicality here is about how to engage the larger community in discussions about maps and mapping.
