Section Three

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 SECTION THREE 9 10 11 12 Cartographic Aesthetics and Map Design 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 1 2 3 4 5 6 3.1 7 8 9 Introductory Essay: Cartographic 10 11 12 Aesthetics and Map Design 13 14 15 16 Chris Perkins, Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin 17 18 19 20 Introduction offers only a partial means for explaining the deployment 21 of changing visual techniques. We finish with a consider- 22 If there is one thing that upsets professional cartographers ation of some of the practices and social contexts in which 23 more than anything else it is a poorly designed map; a aesthetics and designs are most apparent, suggesting the 24 map that lacks conventions such as a scale bar, or legend, or subjective is still important in mapping and that more 25 fails to follow convention with respect to symbology, name work needs to be undertaken into how mapping functions 26 placing and colour schemes, or is aesthetically unpleasing as a suite of social practices within wider visual culture. 27 to the eye. In contrast, a well designed map not only follows We conclude that earlier distinctions between artistic and 28 conventions, but is beautiful to behold. It is perhaps no scientific approaches to mapping may be rather unhelpful, 29 surprise then that cartography has often been called both and that that tensions between everyday practicalities and 30 a science and an art. A map is something that is crafted theoretical concerns are often overstated. 31 using scientific principles, which aims not only to faithfully 32 represent the spatial relations of the world, but also to 33 be aesthetically pleasing. Balancing these concerns is not The nature of design and aesthetics 34 straightforward and much research has been conducted to 35 find map design principles that enhance both the commu- Robinson’s work spelt out the need for a visual approach 36 nication and look of maps. In particular, such research to cartography, grounded in a view of the discipline con- 37 gained prominence in the second half of the twentieth cerned above all else with communication. His research 38 century after the publication of Arthur H. Robinson’s delineated many of the aesthetic factors that might be sig- 39 monograph The Look of Maps in 1952 (excerpted here as nificant in effective map design. The resulting Robinsonian 40 Chapter 3.3). conceptualisation of cartography was strongly imbued with 41 This introductory essay explores some of the dimen- a functionalist rhetoric. Here, the primary role of the 42 sions across which aesthetics and design matters, and cartographer was to encode information in an optimal 43 delineates and explains how they are changing. Firstly, map design, such that the map reader would be better 44 we consider some of the philosophical issues raised by able to receive the cartographic message (Robinson and 45 focusing in different ways of understanding the design Petchenik 1976, excerpted as Chapter 1.3). For Robinson, 46 and ‘the look’ of the map. We then move on to consider aesthetic concerns were narrowly defined in distinctly 47 the changing impacts of technology on map design and, normative terms: art had a purpose and the purpose was 48 in particular, upon the deployment of different kinds of to raise the communicative efficiency of the map. Robinson 49 thematic displays, before suggesting that technology alone argued treating maps as art could lead to arbitrary design 50 51 The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation, First Edition. Edited by Martin Dodge, Rob Kitchin and Chris Perkins. 52 Ó 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 222 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY: CARTOGRAPHIC AESTHETICS AND MAP DESIGN 1 decisions and that mapping needed to be based upon an excerpted as Chapter 1.2). Bertin defined what came to 2 objective application of best design practice. be known as visual variables: primitives that designers can 3 Robinson posited that the process of map design can be vary in order to construct the various visual codes which 4 broken down into sequences of different encoding and come together in map symbols and indeed complete maps. 5 decoding operations. Visual matters play little role in Alan MacEachren (1994, 1995, excerpted as Chapter 3.6) 6 data collection: it is in the abstraction, generalisation and others have subsequently expanded on Bertin’s work, 7 and symbolisation of information that design becomes integrating cognitive and semiotic approaches to develop 8 important. Generalisation is itself often still a matter of an approach to cartography centred on scientific visuali- 9 aesthetics and compromise: the look of the map dictates sation. This also led to a focus on mapping processes, rather 10 what works best when considering how much simplifi- than simply optimal map design. 11 cation is required and may be particularly significant when The rise of critical cartography in the 1990s generated a 12 maps depict specialist variables (Jenks 1963, excerpted number of challenges to supposed scientific approaches 13 as Chapter 3.4). Maps comprise combinations of line to map design. On the one hand, social constructivist 14 work, symbols, lettering and colours. These are all deployed approaches argued that map design was infused with 15 through metrics that represent and control space: maps are ideological and subjective decisions, even if it was framed 16 projected, sometimes gridded, usually uniformly scaled. scientifically. On the other, there was a concern that a focus 17 Map design and projection choice inevitably impacts on on power relations inherent in design issues would push the 18 the look of a map, a fact exploited by all the protagonists in focus towards exploring how power was embedded in 19 the ‘map wars’ over the Peters projection (an equal area maps, thus relegating issues of ‘good design’ to the margins. 20 map that displayed the boundaries of countries in propor- Krygier (1996) suggested that these challenges, along with 21 tion to the size of their relative land mass – which looks technological change, made it more possible to escape the 22 distinctly different to the more common Mercator projec- art/science dualism, by encouraging a focus on mapping 23 tion). Indeed, it was the unconventional look of the map as a ‘sense making process’ encompassing both. So, a con- 24 that initially sparked the controversy (Crampton 1994; cern for the aesthetic in cartography (Kent 2006) may be 25 Monmonier 2004). expressed through science as well as through art; see for 26 The ‘success’ of a symbol clearly impacts on overall example the consideration by Dykes and Wood (2008, 27 design quality: decisions need to be taken on matters such excerpted as Chapter 3.12), where the elegant simplicity 28 as placement, sizing, an appropriate measurement level, and intellectual focus of a tree map reflects beauty, and 29 the choice of a qualitative or quantitative representation where the science of information visualisation is shown to 30 and iconicity. In addition, Robinson et al. (1995) spelt out work best through artistic registers. And Huffman (1996) 31 what might be termed the more gestalt-like features of who explored ways in which design might still matter in the 32 a design, which work together to create an impression, relativistic postmodern world. 33 including legibility, visual contrast, figure-ground effects, 34 visual hierarchy and balance, and, rather as an after-thought, 35 what are termed contextual items, but which largely elide Forms of mapping and aesthetics 36 anything beyond the surface of the map artefact itself. 37 This Robinsonian orthodoxy pervaded the emergence As well as significantly shaping the approach to map design, 38 of academic cartography in North America, and continues Robinson’s work also influenced the form of mapping 39 to be reflected in the narrative of cartographic textbooks. undertaken, and by default the look of maps. Elements 40 Compare, for example, the sixth and final edition of the of Cartography first published in 1953, and running to six 41 discipline-defining Elements of Cartography (Robinson subsequent revised editions, elided topographic matters. 42 et al. 1995) with a recent text aimed at the North American Instead, thematic mapping based on quantitative data 43 market (Tyner 2010). Neither spends much time on the dominates the text. As a result, the distinction into the- 44 elements of cartography that are most aesthetic, and, where matic mapping, and topographic survey or general pur- 45 they do, the aesthetic is defined in scientific rather than pose mapping, became reified in the day-to-day practices 46 artistic terms. The principles of cartographic design, based of cartography as a profession: cartographers were most 47 upon a scientific understanding of how visual cognition likely to be trained in the design of the former, not the 48 works, are set out in systematic fashion, with the aim of latter. It is perhaps unsurprising then that most subsequent 49 reducing the chances of ‘inappropriate’ design choices. Anglo-American textbooks have also had very little to say 50 In contrast, a different approach to information design about the design of topographic maps.

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