Overland World Map

[Kingbreaker]

I feel yer pain Z about fonts...I have over 15,000 but can only run 5,000 at any given time and I'll spend one whole night just browsing thru to find a list of 100 or so that I like and then legibility issues will cut that down to only a handful. Choosing the right one is time consuming if yer trying to capture the feel with a font.

Things that I have learned recently (ie. my last map) in dealing with fonts to help legibility....bigger point size, tint/shade (light text on dark background or vice-versa), color (not necessarily complimentary colors just colors that look nice togerther), outer glow (to put some dead space around the text), stroke (give a hard edge to the text), spacing between letters (letters too squished together are hard to read at small size), width of letters (narrow letters are hard to read at small size), height of letters (short letters are hard to read at small size), the simpler the font the easier it is to read (sometimes we have to sacrifice style for substance), fancy and scripty are harder to read than simple and bold, and don't over-fancy it up with styles, shadows, gradients, and 3d effects when doing labeling...save that for the title.

My favorite example of why a simple font can look excellent is Aurellia by Arcana:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2272

He uses the the map itself to create a feel; fonts are simple, clear, and light.

Hrrrmm. . .

Are you aware of any utilities that will hunt through a font library and generate sample text of each? I had to do this manually back when I was doing design but it seems like a really useful utility to have. Printed references are soooo worth it for this.

[Ascension]

I use The Font Thing.

[SikSavant]

I was wondering if there was any more word on the possible mountain tutorial for this map style. What can I say, I'm interested

[Zaramis]

I am still trying to figure out how to best make a tutorial off it, and how to present one..

Should I just type up a post? Or does it require screenshots and everything to qualify as a tutorial?

[Jykke]

i guess everything goes as long as the steps are detailed enough ..and pictures are always a good bonus.

[Zaramis]

Here's a tutorial:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...5242#post55242

[Zaramis]

Updated fonts and added a whole lot more countries. What do you think about the fonts now? Apart from them, not much has changed. Changed the outer glow on the borders.

Also, if anyone has any thoughts or impressions from the world itself or the image it gives off, feel very welcome to state some. It's more a world project than a map and I plan on putting all my work on it online some day, or maybe even in book form, so I hesitated for a long time to put up my maps here.. but I figured, why not share my work? Its not like I hope to make a living of it, and I think that any exposure can only be good, both for one's experience, to give people a chance to experience your world or at least look at it and to help others develop good stuff =)

[Ascension]

This looks great, fonts are good too.

[ravells]

Fonts look fantastic. I really like your political borders as well. Repped.

[Steel General]

Nice job...