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1 month ago | 
esri.com | Heather Smith |Bern Szukalski |John Nelson
When someone asks me for help improving their map, my advice is almost always to simplify. A simpler map is easier to design and easier to read. When it comes to visual communication, less is more. Try using fewer layers, fewer colors, and fewer words. Two places where simplification is especially impactful are pop-ups and symbols.
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2 months ago | 
esri.com | Heather Smith |John Nelson
Choropleth maps are filled areas of color representing quantitative data. Normalization is an important step in making choropleth maps. The goal of normalization is to allow for meaningful comparisons across features. How do you know if you need to normalize your data? How should you normalize it? How can you tell if normalization is working? What is the point? These short videos share advice, examples, and analogies to help answer these questions and explain normalization for choropleth maps. Video #1.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
esri.com | John Nelson
You may have heard that “all maps lie” and that’s right. Each map is a collection of compromises, whether they’re geomatic (your projection and scale choices), editorial (your choice of subject and what you’ve chosen to show and not show), and thematic (how you choose to show quantitative information). There are myriad others of course, too. The gist is maps carry with them the galaxy of choices of their makers, for better or worse. We want to push our maps on the “for better” side of that balance.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
esri.com | John Nelson
ArcGIS Blog It’s that time of year when geographers the world over gather together in, let’s be honest, just slightly awkward office holiday parties.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
esri.com | John Nelson
A vignette is a darkening (or lightening) of the edges of a composition, to subtly frame it and draw the eye in to the middle. It’s an old photographer’s darkroom trick. Lucky for us, I’ve spent many hours in the darkroom and have grown to appreciate the charm and effectiveness of a good vignette. Here’s how, and why, you can make them for your ArcGIS Pro map. 0:00 What even is a vignette? 0:15 Why even is a vignette?
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
esri.com | Thomas Coughlin |John Nelson |Kenneth Field |Heather Smith
ArcGIS Blog ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud is a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Cartographers and designers can bring ArcGIS data into Adobe Creative Cloud to create beautiful and useful maps and graphics. New to Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud? Get started with our video tutorial playlist.
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Oct 25, 2024 | 
esri.com | John Nelson
ArcGIS Blog There are lots of reasons why cartographers use dashed lines in their maps. Sometimes there are a lot of different sorts of lines going around and it’s the best way to differentiate between different categories of things. Or we can embed meaning into them, like a dashed line representing something unofficial, impermanent, or disputed.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
spokesman.com | Leslie Kelly |John Nelson |Dan Webster |Joe Butler
We’ve come to love our 23-foot Thor Gemini through the good times and the bad. Sure, there have been repairs and frustrations. We’re currently trying to figure out whether we can repair or need to replace our CD/DVD player.
Still, every so often, we toy with the idea of going a new direction with a pull-behind.
Recently, a friend asked us for advice about what kind of trailer to buy. She’s already got a beefy pickup and is adept at pulling an additional vehicle.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
spokesman.com | Leslie Kelly |John Nelson |Dan Webster |Joe Butler
VICTORIA, British Columbia -- It’s only 70 miles from Seattle to Victoria, but it feels like you’re in a different world when you arrive.
Now, that’s 70 miles for a determined crow flying in a straight line. For those of us who don’t have wings, the trip takes a little longer, with stops for local salmon at the excellent Lummi Seafood Market near Bellingham, then the border crossing and the trek over to Tsawwassen, B.C., to the catch ferry to the south end of Vancouver Island.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
spokesman.com | Leslie Kelly |John Nelson |Dan Webster
Home is where you park it -- or so say the bumper stickers on many RVs we see on the road. But that adage is extra meaningful when we pull into Port Townsend, the historic village that draws tourists and prospective residents in big numbers.
On a recent visit, we revisited some of our old faves and found a few new gems.
