Cruise to Key West

I have the good luck to get paid to play . . . with data and maps. I'm posting a bunch of my maps from various projects in the hopes of getting feedback and starting dialogue on marine GIS analysis and cartography.

MY BACKGROUND: I have worked in public education at a major aquarium, as a math, science, and computer teacher at a rural charter school in North Carolina, and at present, as a Senior Biologist at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota. I hold Master's degrees in both Natural Resources and Teaching, and a certificate in GIS from the Penn State World Campus (a great program for those who live far from a campus!) In my present job I specialize in GIS analysis and presentation, statistical analysis, and database management, programming, and design (MS Access). I also get to have fun in the water once in awhile, and contribute to scientific publications on a regular basis.

This first map is just a fun one I did to show off the route my husband and I took to Key West last year in our sailboat, Ohana. We took a month off work and cruised around Southwest Florida. We had lots of folks who wanted to hear about the trip, and this map simplifies the telling of the story (that's what maps are meant to do, right?).

MAP DETAILS --

1) Place name descriptions were given a "halo" of the same color as land, so that county borders disappear around them. This makes them easier to read. The "Cape Haze, Placida" label is actually two, "Cap" with no halo, as it's over water, and "e Haze, Placida" with a halo, as that part is over land. I just moved them right next to each other so they look like one label.

2) For the numbers, I used a circle with a number on top, and grouped them. That makes it easy to move them around. I love using numbers like this because they're really attractive. Using a black or color circle with a white number also looks great.

3) For the basemap of land, I used a relatively simplified shapefile. The Florida coastline can be very complex, given the large number of canals, islands, and tiny bays. When you use a shapefile that's too complex, and zoom way out to a small-scale map, these details look very dark and "blobby". So I try to find the simplest version of my area that I can, without sacrificing the details I need. This shapefile came from the US Census. The only drawback of this shapefile is that it's missing Lake Okechobee!