Cartographic Skills - Module 10

1.       After completing adding the legend and the essential map elements to the project, I began to work on the color scheme. I locked everything but the continents in the layers table, and selected the direct selection tool. I went into “select-same-fill color” in the main menu as directed and highlighted Asia.

2.       I clicked in “Recolor Artwork” at the top, and picked a Strong Red color. I colored the other continents in a similar fashion, by selecting them and using the “Eyedropper” tool to pick the same color as for Asia.

3.       Afterwards, I locked the continents in the Layer table, and unlocked the “US Immigration” layer. I changed the color scheme of the enlarged United States in the same fashion. I adjusted the legend in order to correspond with the new color scheme by clicking on each box and using the “eyedropper” tool on appropriate states.

4.       I unlocked the neatline, and selected it with the direct selection tool. I chose a light blue, in order to match a color theme of my map (I do not think it could be mistaken for an ocean.)

5.       I selected one of the flow lines (Asia) and selected “effects – stylize – inner glow” as directed. I picked an opacity of 20 and Blue of 144. Left the arrow red in color. Afterwards, I selected all the arrows and clicked ctrl-shift-E as directed to make them all match.

6.       I highlighted all the arrows with a direct selection tool. I added a standard shadow to the arrows as suggested in the directions. (effect-stylize-drop shadow-ok).

7.       I used the rectangle tool to draw an oval around the enlarged US, in order to make it clear that it is not a proportional element. I moved the oval down in the layer table so that it does not appear on top of any other feature.

8.       I decided to make my large United States three dimensional. After locking everything but the US in the layer table, I selected it and in the main menu, I clicked on “Effect – 3d – extrude & bevel.” I experimented with different positioning of the cube, and the extrude depth but decided to do something different. Because the large US map contains info crucial to understanding the information, I decided to leave it flat. Instead, I decided to make the surrounding continents appear 3d.

9.       I locked the US in the layer table, and unlocked all continents. After selecting them all with the direct selection tool, I followed the same instructions to access the extrude & bevel menu. I reduced the extrude depth to 20 pt, and rotated the cube. The continents looked great on the preview, but after Adobe Illustrator crashed 4 times in a row after loading the changes for five minutes on each occasion, I decided to use a different effect.

10.   A added a shadow to both of my legends and the oval neatline for the center US map.

11.   I selected the large neatline, and opened the gradient menu on the left side of the screen. I angled the gradient at -126 degrees, and left it in grayscale.

12.   I saved the map, and exited the Illustrator.