Well said, Falconius.
I'd disagree with the generalization that art is necessarily about communicating information. Very often it is about evoking emotion. But in the case of mapmaking, the information is definitely of primary importance. In that way, it's more like graphic design than "art," by which most people mean fine art. So with that distinction in mind, I went to a school that was focused on commercial arts, and thus design and communication were typically more important than the "finer" points of the art. In the relatively rare instances that I make a map these days, I do apply a great deal of what I learned formally to the process.
Thinking about balance helps with composition. It helps me decide where to put a legend or compass rose, and how big it should be. Knowing a bit about color harmonies, symbolic and emotional freight carried by color, and the principles of contrast greatly helps me to choose my palette. Typographic knowledge helps me to quickly narrow down what fonts I want to use and an understanding of how the details of a font interact with the features it is placed over help me to integrate my type into the image. Understanding the concept of unity helps take disparate elements and tie them together into a whole that looks like it belongs together—that means identifying noise levels, blur/sharpness, line qualities, style and color/value.
Here's a practical example, using Silva's coastline alpha attached above. It's pretty heavy along the top of the frame with that polar continent, so I would be inclined to balance that with a largeish title cartouche centered on the bottom.
Another example: One of the things that often jumps out at me in digital maps is the use of pure white in city markers or labels. Whenever I notice it, I typically advise the cartographer to match those markers to the color of the brightest other feature on the map. That helps to integrate the elements into the map and prevents the viewer's eye from jumping haphazardly across the image from bright spot to bright spot. Blacks should likewise be matched, but they don't draw the eye as much as white, so I don't lean on them quite so hard.
Many of these skills are things that you learn, and then as you practice them they just kind of vanish into your consciousness. Eventually you don't have to think about them, you'll just apply them reflexively. When I began my arts career, I sometimes agonized over my color choices. These days, I choose them intuitively. All of that knowledge and experience is being applied to the choice, but I seldom do it deliberately.
edit: Oh, and I feel that I should also mention how much my participation here has affected my work as a professional artist. Just today I finished a difficult shot for NCIS where they're zooming in with an infrared spy satellite. I spent a lot of time in Google Earth, on the USGS website, using G.Projector, and applying other knowledge I learned here to that shot. I'm sure that's all going to be completely lost on the audience, but it's there. And that's not the first time this website has contributed to my job, either.
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