Beginner Map-making for the #30DayMapChallenge
For Day 12 of the #30DayMapChallenge, the challenge topic is population. Our Teammate Chelsey from Marketing, a true beginner when it comes to map-making, steps up to the plate. With lots of help from cartography and gis experts, her focus was on finding simple population data and doing basic data manipulations to learn how to use Avenza MAPublisher.
Finding Data
This was one of the most difficult parts for a completely new map maker. Having absolutely no idea where to start Chelsey turned to her team. Here are a few of the tips she learned on how to source data.
- Have an idea
- Chelsey loves Australia and has always wanted to visit.
- Google is your best friend
- We started searching for data by searching broad terms “Population Data Australia”.
- Open Street Maps
- Sourcing Census Data is a good place to start
- This data is often easier to access and is verified.
- Break the data down
- Data can be overwhelming, we decided to focus on Tasmania, a province of Australia.
- Play around with data
- Working with digital data is non destructive and doesn’t take too long. Don’t be afriad to try different data sets or play around with things.
Software
Having access to incredible map-making software like MAPublisher and Geographic Imager really made this next part simple.
With MAPublisher you’re able to open and manipulate spatially referenced data… RIGHT IN ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR! Chelsey was impressed with how easy it really was to open the data sets, set projections, and even create a legend in less than five clicks!
“It’s easy to get intimidated by all the rows and rows of data. MAPublisher put it all in the Adobe environment I’m already familier with, that helped make it all easier to understand and work with.”
Chelsey Harasym – Avenza Marketing
Fun Fact: Not all maps or infographics need to be serious, check out this great map about Sharknados!
Map Insets
Sometimes, like in our example shown above, you really need to zoom in to see the detail of a map. This is often down using Map Insets. Chelsey used a map inset to showcase the more populated areas of Tasmania. If you’re interested in learning how to create map insets with MAPublisher, learn how here.
Ready to Try?
Download your own free trial of either MAPublisher (Adobe Illustrator) or Geographic Imager (Adobe Photoshop) today to start making your very own beginner maps!