Andrew Wallace’s elegant pair of maps about wilderness parks in Orange County, California, showcase the fusion of thoughtful cartography and local insights. In this Back to the Map, Wallace, a geographic information system (GIS) specialist at OC Parks, explains how he balanced map design and amenity details to orient and inform visitors to the parks.
Maps.com: What drove you to create these maps? What were you hoping to highlight?
Wallace: The inspiration for this map was the need to provide park visitors with a kiosk map that could convey terrain and topography of the wilderness area, and also answer common questions regarding campsite and amenity location, trail difficulty, and points of interest. Caspers Wilderness Park contains over 50 miles of trails throughout roughly 7,000 acres of rugged chaparral, and it is a matter of safety to provide the public with a tool to visualize the distance and difficulty of trails and gain a realistic understanding of the terrain prior to exploring. The intention with this map was to provide an all-encompassing resource containing park information and navigational tools such as a coordinate graticule, contour lines, scale, and declination information. Realistic hillshading was also an important cartographic goal of this map, as it allows park visitors who may be less familiar with map use to easily understand the vertical scale of the trail system.
Maps.com: What tools and techniques did you use to build the maps?
Wallace: This map was built in ArcGIS Pro, primarily using OC Parks’ proprietary geodatabase layers. The GIS team and park rangers worked together to design a kiosk map that could fulfill the needs of park visitors and facilitate a safe and enjoyable visit. The process of designing the layout and placing the inset maps and information boxes required the most time and creativity. Secondly, it was important to us to create a realistic hillshade. This process involved overlaying a partially transparent, multidirectional hillshade over a beige background, overlayed by a single-direction hillshade. By using the color burn blend mode to find the sweet spot for contrast, I believe we were able to strike a balance in visual hierarchy between appropriately representing the terrain while still allowing the foreground map elements to be the center of attention. The design of this map was inspired by blending the modern OC Parks design template with elements of historical USGS topo maps and utilizing a color palette that we felt characterized the landscape of the park.
Maps.com: Were you surprised by anything during this project?
Wallace: Through this project I encountered the usefulness of blend modes in ArcGIS Pro. This has allowed us to take our basemaps an extra step further in terms of realism.
Maps.com: Is there anything you would change about these maps if you could take another pass at them?
Wallace: In previous iterations of this map, we experimented with blending aerial imagery into the basemap. This provided an aesthetically pleasing element and added realism. However, we felt that a more plain basemap may allow for less visual clutter and keep the focus of the map on trails and park amenities. Possible updates might include further exploring basemap blend mode settings.
Maps.com: How did you get into mapmaking?
Wallace: Maps have intrigued me ever since I was a child. I’ve always enjoyed working with computers and I love camping and hiking. I found my niche in geography, where I could turn my interests into a career.
Maps.com: As a professional mapmaker, what are some of your favorite maps?
Wallace: I enjoy historical USGS topo maps, particularly of the Sierra Nevada or Mojave Desert regions. They give just enough information to imagine what it might really look and feel like if I were out there, and the intangible qualities of those historical maps seem to have the ability to spark that urge to find out for myself.
Maps.com: What sort of mapping projects would you like to tackle next?
Wallace: I’d like to explore using this design template to map the county’s urban parks.
Featured Contributors
Andrew Wallace
Andrew Wallace is a Cal State Fullerton alumnus, holding a master’s degree in geography as well as undergraduate degrees in geography and anthropology. As a GIS practitioner based in Orange County, California, he works to facilitate land stewardship and conservation through the development of paper and digital cartographic tools.
- Tags
