Originally Posted by Zlovreda
1. I have mixed feelings about this map. It's not an inherently ugly map, but visually speaking, there is a LOT going on in the eyespace with this map. It''s akin to being stuck in heavy visual traffic at rush hour.
2. The colors and textures are a visual smorgasbord. The color of the water gets higher marks from me than that repetitive pattern that underlies it. Too much repetition of that matter doesn't make the map a more visually interesting place. It just floods the map with repetition of line work. As a cartographic experiment, it's fine, but this chosen approach robs the map of a sizeable portion of what otherwise might be its visual glory.
3. Lots and lots and lots of text labels for for place names. Yet, they all run horizontally, from left to right. This lack of variety in text labels visually dumbs the map down, when you have this map labels in play. No curving text. No text labels that follow the mountain ranges, themselves. The white highlighting of text labels is used so extensively as to be too commonplace. Rather than making certain text labels stand out and apart from the others, it instead exists everywhere on the map. It works best where there's less of it.
4. This map was driven by an extravagant imagination, but what it is serving up is a visual buffet of the ordinary. The visual excesses that run rampant on and across this map signifies a need for greater adherence to self-discipline and self-restraint. This map required a lot of time and work to bring into existence, but it ends up being a great example of how more is not necessarily better.
5. The color choices, by and large, are not harsh upon the eye, as I just sit and stare at this map, as I let my eyes just roam all over it. No neon colors running rampant to make my eyes beg to depart from looking at it. but when I look at places like the Ruins of Qadjadar, that white highlight color for the black text washes out some of the small details behind that text label. What ends up happening is that the geographic details of the map become relegated to secondary visual status. Text labels should be to inform about the geography, not visually subjugate the geographic details.
6. The different textures employed for different areas of the map are more eye-jarring, when view up close, compared to when not zoomed in on them. The transition effect between different areas of sharp textures could be improved upon.
7. From the perspective of place names (individual local places), this map was a very ambitious undertaking - which is a great trek across the imagination. But the visual grandeur of the map which underlays all of those place names suffers from a less grandiose visual treatment.
8. All of those plain red dots that denote important places, such as Orthanc, cry out for visual upgrades. These are special places, so those red dots need to be imbued with a greater degree of special detail. The map will thank you for it, if it is still possible on the cartographer's end to modify this map with more of an attention-to-detail feel.
9. The choice of vegetation was a curious one. How the grass and the trees play off of one another, visual, is a conundrum, of sorts, for me. I want to like them, but I am not so sure that I do. Perhaps they are not a match made in visual heaven.
10. The outline of the continent is a bit thin for my taste. This translates into the outline of the continent being visually lorded over by all of those thicker text labels.
11. If that's some kind of a road network (sand colored) down in the red islands, the visual depiction of it leaves me just sort of shaking my head. It would seem to me to be a very special thing, but when I look at it, again, I realize anew that the visual depiction of it was anything but.
12. I don't hate this map, and I actually want to love it, and very much so. Instead, I am very ambivalent about it, and simply feel that various choices made by the cartographer in the crafting of this map collectively work to undermine its claim to legitimate visual greatness.
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