Week 2- Own Your Map Lab

This week in GIS4043 the theme of the map lab was to 'Own Your Map'. I created a basic location map using an inset dataframe as an aid for the map viewer. For this example the main map view is of Escambia County, Florida. The location of the county within the overall state of Florida is shown in red on the small inset map.

I did what I could to 'own my map' by customizing the map legend and adhering to the same map text font and scale bar styles throughout. The symbols used on the map below had not been changed much from the lab example mainly because I thought that they already conveyed the point of the map quite well... and in terms of published maps similar to this the main location always seems to be a big fat star. Why reinvent the wheel?

The main map view also contains interstates and rivers that were clipped to the extent of Escambia County. I really enjoyed completing this part of the lab. Previously I had done clips using ArcToolbox and multiple copies of the data... frankly I had found clips to be somewhat of a labor intensive, migraine inducing experience. I had no idea clipping could be as easy as following a few steps within the overall dataframe view - and it's easily reversible too! As ridiculous as it sounds this new knowledge has opened up whole new worlds for me!

Completed map for the 'Own Your Map' lab.