When you hate your map...

[Chick]

Your older mountains are fairly awful, but recent ones are good, probably because you are critical of them and made an effort to improve. Your labelling has not changed appreciably that I can see and I would say it's your current weak point. That's rather that I was getting at. If you aren't seeing things to be improved, you aren't improving. Weak labelling often gives a general sense of disjointedness and difficulty in reading the map as a whole rather than feeling like its a specific problem with labelling. That's why it needs special attention.

That surprises me, but perhaps you could give me some ideas or examples about why you think my labeling is weak?

[- Max -]

With maps in particular I think it's safe to say that if you are ever satisfied with the job you did of placing labels, then you aren't being remotely picky enough to do a good job of labelling. So in that aspect of cartography this kind of thing is somewhat unavoidable.

I completely agree. Labeling is one of the hardest part, if not the hardest, in map making. Right typography, right text hierarchy, right curves, right kerning, right placement, right legibility, right colors etc. This cartography aspect needs a lot of attention to serve the whole purpose of the map. Weak labeling can just turn a great map into a poor one. I often feel that I still have some room improvment on labeling on most of each map I'm doing. I tried a practise a few months ago: I took an old map of mine that I'm still pleased at (which isn't the case for all if them ) but entirely reworked the labeling. It was no contest, the same map with an improved labeling was way better to the eye. it really made a difference.

[Hai-Etlik]

That surprises me, but perhaps you could give me some ideas or examples about why you think my labeling is weak?

You tend to mix curved and uncurved labels within a feature class which gives a disjointed feel to the class. Making labels look the same is one of the ways to indicate they label the same kind of thing.

You don't seem to be using spacing adjustment. Especially with curved labels this is important as curved text generally benefits from at least a bit of extra spacing. When labelling areas with curved labels it's a good idea to stretch the label to fill the extent using letter spacing (not text size). This can also help to traverse other features without colliding. Taking that further you can do manual letter kerning to adjust individual letters slightly for better effect.

You only ever seem to use single curves even where a double curves would work better.

Your labels often seem more vertical or more tightly curved than they need to be. Sometimes a fairly vertical label is warranted but if there's a choice, horizontal is better as it's more readable.

Going the other way, a few times I noticed what appeared to be labels running at straight diagonals, or possibly curves that are too loose. Diagonal labels should have enough curve to look curved or they break up the map.

More generally, there's just a 'fit' between labels and the features of the map that isn't as good as it could be. It's subtle and made up of many minor factors that make it hard to describe precisely.

[Chick]

Thank you for the excellent critique.

I'm still a little confused though, since I thought I did every single one of the things you mentioned that I don't.

A feature class is always either straight or curved, I change the kerning to make a label spread over the area that it labels. I have used kerning to help labels cross such things as rivers or other interfering features, and I never use double curves because every time I tried them, they were ugly and hard to read. I use as horizontal as possible within the space available for the label, and make them diagonal if necessary. I don't normally curve diagonals to fit space, because that would clash with the feature style.

Would it be too much trouble for you to choose a map that I have posted in the past two or three months and show me an example of where I went wrong?

[Jaxilon]

I seem to remember a conversation on labels and the efforts put into Google maps that we had here some years ago. Maybe it was just an article I read though. Its hard to remember, but they spent a lot of effort to get things right.

If Hai-Etlik does a full critique on map labels for you I will be paying close attention because I still think I can learn a lot about how to do them, so thanks for volunteering to jump in front of the bus

[Meshon]

A feature class is always either straight or curved

See, I haven't even gotten this far with labels. For whatever reason I'd just never considered uniformity of shape, or even the concept of a "feature class". I don't think I've ignored those things, but I just haven't consciously considered them as elements yet. I appreciate the pointers.

I would definitely be up for some highly technical label dissection, though I should probably go have a look at a few more maps with these things in mind before I start to form a personal aesthetic.

I tried a practise a few months ago: I took an old map of mine that I'm still pleased at (which isn't the case for all if them ) but entirely reworked the labeling. It was no contest, the same map with an improved labeling was way better to the eye. it really made a difference.

That is a cool experiment. I like your commitment!

cheers,
Meshon

[Chick]

There's no doubt that labels are very important to a map. I have been basing mine on this very excellent tutorial "Positioning Names on Maps" by Eduard Imhof:

http://www.mapgraphics.net/downloads...es_on_Maps.pdf

[Domino44]

I completely agree with labels being one of the hardest things about creating a great map. I have struggled with it time and time again and it's still the part that I like least about making a new map. I know I have come a long way since I started but I still have so much to learn and not just about labeling.

[Meshon]

Thanks for the article link, I've got a free evening without distraction, so I think I'll have a read!

cheers,
Meshon

[Diamond]

I know my text/labels are far from perfect, but strangely it's become my favorite part of mapping. I enjoy coming up with names and figuring out how to position them. As far as 'the rules' of text placement: I don't intend to slavishly adhere to something just because it's the accepted way to do things. If I or a client likes something, it stays, simple as that.