TY - JOUR
T1 - A transition in improving maps
T2 - The ColorBrewer example
AU - Brewer, Cynthia A.
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Mark Harror,wAssisteant Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, isco -developer of ColorBerr.wGefefroyW.Hachatrd asseid st pe-rresdysarefiemnent of the colors. This work was part of the Digal iGtornvmenet Quality Graphics pojecrt <w.gewovistaw.psu.edu/grants/ dg-qg/intro.html> funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9934581, 934599, 8 9834691.
Funding Information:
The ColorBer rwtogeworfrol amdesei r to assist mapmaking by colleagues at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Natinoal CnceraIsnutte i(NtCI), and the U.S. Census Bureu. aItdsev elopment was funded as part of a grant frotmehNat ial on Science Foundation’s Digital Government Prom gtrtohaG eoVISTA Center at Penn State <w.gweovistaw.psu.edu>. The National Center for Health Statitiscs, the National Cancer Institute, and the Census Bureu aalso contributed funds to this pojecrt trohugh the National Science Foundation.
PY - 2003/4
Y1 - 2003/4
N2 - Many map makers seek to share their map design efforts by distributing styles, fonts, templates, software, tips, and other sorts of instructions. For example, offers links to a variety of symbol and font design efforts by mapmakers who use ESRI's GIS products. In this article, I will reflect on the format for offering map design assistance that I have used in ColorBrewer (Figure 1). ColorBrewer is a web tool for selecting color schemes for thematic maps. It has elicited a trickle of enthusiastic e-mail from pleased users who tell me that their maps are improved, and they are relieved to save time on a design challenge for which they are not confident of their skills. ColorBrewer is described in detail in two papers (Harrower and Brewer, in press; Brewer et al. 2003). It is described briefly here to provide context for my reflections on a transition in cartography toward assisting people who want to represent their information spatially but who have little or no training in the conventions and principles of map design and data representation.
AB - Many map makers seek to share their map design efforts by distributing styles, fonts, templates, software, tips, and other sorts of instructions. For example, offers links to a variety of symbol and font design efforts by mapmakers who use ESRI's GIS products. In this article, I will reflect on the format for offering map design assistance that I have used in ColorBrewer (Figure 1). ColorBrewer is a web tool for selecting color schemes for thematic maps. It has elicited a trickle of enthusiastic e-mail from pleased users who tell me that their maps are improved, and they are relieved to save time on a design challenge for which they are not confident of their skills. ColorBrewer is described in detail in two papers (Harrower and Brewer, in press; Brewer et al. 2003). It is described briefly here to provide context for my reflections on a transition in cartography toward assisting people who want to represent their information spatially but who have little or no training in the conventions and principles of map design and data representation.
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U2 - 10.1559/152304003100011126
DO - 10.1559/152304003100011126
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0042703179
SN - 1523-0406
VL - 30
SP - 159
EP - 162
JO - Cartography and Geographic Information Science
JF - Cartography and Geographic Information Science
IS - 2
ER -