Making Beautiful Maps: Tips and Tricks

• Learn basic principles of cartography focused on symbology and map design
• Create a locator map that highlights your study area effectively
• Understand ESRI's 'Smart Mapping' function and the available options
• Know when to choose symbology styles based on the data and what you want it to say
• Customize your basemap style to fit to your project's theme

A 'locator map' is a map that highlights the study area of your project within a larger area. To create an effective locator map, it is important to use contrasting colors and effects so that your study area stands out above the basemap. It is also important to show your study area within a larger area for perspective before zooming in closer to show more intricate details.

We are going to be creating a StoryMap about the education system of South Carolina, so our locator map is going to highlight the SC state outline within the entire United States. Then, we will zoom in and show the more detailed school districts within the state itself.

Step 1: Add data to web map

Open up ArcGIS online and create a new web map. Under 'Layers' click 'Add', change 'My Content' to 'Living Atlas', and search for "USA Census States". Add the layer. Next, search "School District Characteristics - Current" also within the Living Atlas and add this layer. Make sure the school districts layer is displayed above the state outline layer by dragging it to the top of the layer order list. Save your web map as 'CCGT Workshop 3/28'.

Step 2: Filter out all other states except South Carolina

Select the 'USA Census States' layer. On the right hand panel, click 'Filter'. Click 'Add Expression' and then create the expression 'State Abbreviation' is 'SC'.

(See image to the right)

Similarly, filter the "School District Characteristics" layer by creating the expression 'State name' is 'SOUTH CAROLINA'.

Click 'Save'.

Now the only state that should appear for both layers is South Carolina.

Step 3: Highlight the state outline

Next we need to add some effects to make the state outline highlighted against the basemap. We will also be editing the basemap appearance later to add to this effect.

With the USA Census States layer selected, on the right hand side click 'Styles'. Go to 'Pick a style' -> 'Location (single symbol)' -> 'Style Options'. Click the 'Edit' symbol next to 'Symbol Style'.

Change the fill color to a light blue (#abcdeb) and outline color to white (#ffffff). Change outline width to 3px and click Done.

Next click the 'Properties' button found directly above the 'Styles' button. Change the transparency to 60%. This allows us to see the geographic labels and basemap below the layer, but now the color is very faded.

To brighten the color, we are going to saturate it. To do this, click the 'Effects' pane in the right-hand column. Turn on 'Saturation' and increase the strength to 150. Also turn on 'Drop Shadow' and increase the width to 10. This adds a shadow effect to the data that makes it stand out above the basemap.

Now you can clearly see the state outline contrasted above the basemap. We are later going to change the basemap style to increase this contrast even more and make sure our locator map is highlighted effectively.

Similarly, select your School District Characteristics layer and edit the symbol style to have no fill color, outline color to #00bbff, and outline width to 1.5 px.

Go to the 'Effects' pane and turn on both 'Blur' and 'Brightness and Contrast'. Change Blur strength to 2, Brightness to 120, and Contrast to 100.

Go to the 'Properties' pane and change Transparency to 20%.

The school district outlines now appear to have smoother edges and a brighter appearance on top of the state outline layer.

Change your zoom extent so that the state takes up the majority of the center of the screen like the image above. We will be using the same web map for each map in our StoryMap so we want them to all retain the same zoom extent. Save your web map.

Step 4: Add the locator map to your storymap

Create a new storymap by going to storymaps.arcgis.com. Click 'New' and 'Start from Scratch'.

Title your story 'Education in South Carolina'. Click the plus button and add a floating sidecar. For the first slide of the sidecar, add your map by choosing the 'CCGT Workshop 3/28' web map. We will be adding all of our layers to this same web map so they all retain the same zoom extent.

For the first locator map appearance, we want the map to be zoomed out to show the location of the state within the entire country and only to show the state outline, not school district outlines.

Turn off all other layers except the 'USA Census States' layer. Change the zoom extent to appear something like the image below (zoomed out showing other parts of the country) and then click 'Place Map'.

In the 'Continue your story...' text box copy and paste the following:

'South Carolina can be found in southeastern region of the United States with a population of around 5 million.'

Change the horizontal position of the text box to the right side so it is over the ocean.

Add a second sidecar slide. This time, we will keep the standard zoom extent we set in the web map and also include the school districts. Add the same web map (CCGT Workshop 3/28) and this time do not change the zoom extent. Make sure both the USA Census States and School District layers are shown this time and click 'Place Map'.

In the text box, paste the following:

"South Carolina has 74 public school districts spread throughout the state."

Smart Mapping is a feature by ESRI which uses advanced mapping techniques to predict the best ways to display your data. It is important to remember there is no single correct way to display geospatial data, but understanding the story you want to tell can help you optimize the one you choose.

The smart mapping options we will use as an example today are 'Types and sizes', 'Clustering', 'Predominant Category', and 'Relationship'. These options alone show the diverse array of options ESRI provides for displaying geospatial data, but feel free to explore the rest of them using resources like this!

First we're going to add some data that we can use the 'Types and Sizes' Smart Mapping style for. This is designed for comparing two different features by both their respective type and magnitude. For example, you could compare the renter vs. owner occupied housing units in an area (represented by two different colors), and also simultaneously compare the magnitude of each (represented by the size of the symbol).

In this example, we will be comparing the types of post-secondary education institutions in South Carolina while also comparing the size of enrollment at each institution.

Going back to our CCGT Workshop webmap, add a new layer by searching 'Colleges and Universities in the United States' under the Living Atlas section. Add the layer to the webmap.

This layer has already been symbolized for the 'Types and Sizes' feature, but we will change some of the symbols to match our map style better.

First, filter out unnecessary data points by selecting the Filter pane and creating the expression 'State' is 'SC'.

Select the 'Styles' pane and choose 'Style Options' under Types and Size.

First we will change the sizes to be more contrasting. Click 'Style Options' under 'Counts and Amounts'. Change the lower end of the size range to 5 px and the higher end to 35 px. Now there should be a much more distinct size difference between the smaller and larger schools. Click Done.

(See image to the right)

Next we will change the colors of the school categories to match our theme. Click 'Style Options' under 'Types (unique symbols)'. Under 'Symbol style', choose the third to last color ramp option and click 'flip color ramp'. Click Done.

Change outline color to transparent.

Under the Properties pane, change transparency to 40%. Under the Effects pane, turn on Drop Shadow to 3 width and Saturation to 200 strength.

Now you can see the different types of post-secondary educational institutions categorized by type and size of the institution. This is a great way to visualize multiple aspects of your data all in one map!

Additionally, we can change the symbology to something other than a circle to represent the data. Since our data shows universities and colleges, let's change the symbol from a circle to a graduation cap. Under 'Symbol style', click edit, and then change the 'Current symbol' to the graduation cap under 'POI Basic' in the last row. Click done.

Next we will add a 'Clustering' Smart Mapping feature. This feature groups large amounts of data points into 'clusters' based on their proximity to one another. For data sets with large sets of points that fall within similar areas, this is a great way to visualize them in a less cluttered way. Additionally, you can compare other aspects of the clustered points by making them appear as pie charts or numbered bins.

In this example, we will be clustering groups of schools, and changing the appearance of the cluster to a pie chart to show the distribution of private and public schools in that area.

Under 'My Organization' this time, search 'SC Public Private Schools' and add the layer. Under the Styles pane, add the field 'TYPE' which depicts if the school is private or public. Choose 'Types (unique symbols' and select 'Style options'.

Change the fill color of 'Public' to #d1943f and 'Private' to #8a64b3. Change both outline colors to transparent.

On the right hand column, select the 'Aggregation' panel and choose 'Clustering (chart)'. This is the clustering option that displays the clusters as pie charts. Select options to adjust the size of the charts. Adjust the cluster option settings like the following image. Feel free to spend some time adjusting the different options for shape, cluster radius, and size range to see how they change.

Save the web map.

Next we will use the 'Predominant Category' feature. This compares two similar categories to display the most predominant one, while also denoting the strength of the predominance. This type of symbology could be useful for things like election maps to show the more popular vote and strength of their popularity.

In this example, we will be using this to compare the white vs. non-white populations in South Carolina and the strength of each predominance.

Under 'My Organization' again, search 'SC_Education_Poverty_Disability' and add the layer. In the 'Styles' pane add the fields 'BIPOC Population' and 'WHITE'. You can see there is now a lot of options for symbology with these fields. When adding two numerical fields into the Smart Mapping feature, you have the most possibility to display relationships. For this one, we will choose the 'Predominant Category' relationship, although there are many options that would be equally as effective at displaying the relationship.

Select 'Style options' beneath the 'Predominant Category'. Change the fill color of the 'WHITE' category to #00bbff and the 'BIPOC population' to #d1943f. (Hint: We have used these colors before so they may be saved in your recent colors now).

Set the top limit of the transparency range to 75 and the bottom range to 50. Click Done.

Now you can see the predominant category of race in each county, and the strength of each predominance. Save your web map.

Finally, we will use the relationship feature to compare data. This compares the relationship between two sets of data to visualize where they are both high, both low, or one is high and one is low. This could be used to compare two things like diabetes and obesity, to show where they are both strongly correlated together.

In this example we will be comparing educational attainment with poverty rates to visualize how they correlate.

This will be done using the same data layer as before. Click the three dots next to 'SC_Education_Poverty_Disability' and Duplicate the layer. In the newly duplicated layer, select the Style pane and delete the fields we previously chose. Then add the two fields 'Percent of Pop. No College' and 'Percent of Pop. in Poverty'. Scroll down and choose 'Relationship'.

This type of symbology is one of the more complicated to visualize due to the complexity of the legend. However, with some style adjustments, we can hopefully make it easier to view the trends.

Click 'Style options'. Change the color ramp to the third option in the first row (Blueberry Parfait). Change the transparency to 40%. Change the labels to the following shown in the picture below.

From the legend, you can now see the correlation between the percent of the county below the poverty line and the percent without higher education.

To clean things up, let's rename the layers to make it look less cluttered. Rename a layer by clicking the three dots and 'Rename'.

Rename the following layers:

• USA Census States -> South Carolina
• School District Characteristics - Current -> School Districts
• Colleges and Universities in the United States -> Colleges and Universities
• SC Public Private Schools -> Public and Private Schools
• SC_Education_Poverty_Disability -> Race
• SC_Education_Poverty_Disability Copy -> Poverty and Education

Finally, we will customize our basemap before adding all of our layers into our StoryMap. To do this, go to https://vtse.arcgis.com/ and click 'Start Editing'. Click 'New Style' to create a new basemap style design. From here, you can choose one of the premade basemaps that you'd like to edit the colors/text of.

For this example, I chose the basic 'World Topographic Map' to edit. From here, I changed the following parameters shown in the image below:

• Land: #242424
• Water: #404f62
• Roads: #6c6c6c
• Boundaries: #b1afb0
• Buildings: #9a9a97
• Nature: #828282
• Label text: #e5e5e5
• Label halo: #9a9a97

Additionally, I decreased the road width and label size by about 8 notches so they don't take up too much attention on the map.

Save your style.

Go back to your original webmap, click 'Add', and add your newly created basemap from your 'My Content' section. You can then make it your basemap by clicking the three dots next to the layer, then 'Move to Basemap'.

Now your customized basemap is shown underneath your data and we are ready to insert these into a StoryMap.

Add another sidecar slide and add the same webmap. This time, only show the 'South Carolina' and 'Colleges and Universities' layers. Make sure to also select 'Show Legend' and 'Keep Legend Open' under the settings icon tab. Hit place map.

Move the text box to the right and paste the following:

"There are 60 colleges and universities in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The University of South Carolina in Columbia is the largest university in the state, by enrollment. Trident Technical College in North Charleston is the largest two-year college."

Add another slide of the same webmap, and this time only show the 'South Carolina' and 'Public and Private Schools' layers. Keep the legend open again. Move the text box to the right and paste the following:

South Carolina K-12 schools have a mix of both public and private options. The Charleston area has the highest distribution of private schools, while the Pacolet, Allendale, and North Charleston areas have none.

Add another slide with the same webmap and this time only show the 'Race' layer. Move the text box to the right and paste the following:

'"South Carolina has a total demographic of 66.5% white people and 33.5% black, indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC)."

Add one more slide with the same webmap and show the 'South Carolina' layer and the 'Poverty and Race' layer. Move the text box to the right and paste the following:

"This map shows the correlation between the percent population below the poverty line and percent population without any college education. The majority of the coastal population has more wealthy and higher education population. "

Now the sidecar is complete! To add some final touches, it may be helpful to turn on a 'Navigation' bar which can be found in the very top 'Design' tab. I also chose to change the theme to 'Slate' for a cleaner look.

• Cartography Principles:   https://learn.arcgis.com/en/paths/introduction-to-cartographic-tools-agol/ 
• More Smart Mapping Styles:  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/9dd9f03ac2554da4af78b42020fb40c1 
• Example of Another Good Locator Map:  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/df468704609b472f846330f84b42334b