Excercise 4 - Kay Lee

Florida with Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands

The front page, continued to the back page of the map when unfolded, has an illustration of

various species of birds that represent Florida's rich birdlife.

Animal is a familiar subject that draws attention from the viewers/readers in a favorable sense.

Also, it's notable that the map was printed by National Geographic.

The back page of the map, divided into six columns, follows the Gutenberg diagram,

with its title in a stronger font at the primary optical area, and an image at the terminal area,

but it seems its strong/weak follow areas are not clearly proved. (100)

This map achieves aesthetic color combinations by using analogous colors,

such as green and blue, complementary colors, such as red and green,

and triadic and quadratic colors, such as orange and green.(38)

The symbolism of the colors used here is quite obvious and universal;

blue for sea and green for forest.

By employing example icons, it specifies the regions, infrastructure, territories, etc.

For example, National Wildlife Refuges uses a pictorial image of a bird on the wing,

and a simplified image of an airplane represents the airports.(110)

The consistency of the icons enables viewers/readers to efficiently

recognize and communicate with the map.(46)

Also, opaque layering is used in order to deliver information about important

locations or special events going on each place, probably on purpose of tourism.(122)

Highlighting of the fonts is used to differentiate the administrative districts,

usually the larger , bold, uppercase fonts means the larger district.(108)

"Florida" is the largest visible text as well as the names of the oceans.

I like this map since it's visually pleasing, but I always prefer using mapquest.com for any purpose.
Paper maps are, no matter how well the map is designed, it's always overloaded by too much information
on a limited size of the map. The folded edges start to rip or the areas on the edges become rubbed out.
This kind of map is good when I'm planning for a travel abroad or as a decoration of the walls in my room.