Lovecraft Country

[TheRealVeon]

Hi. I've been working on a map of the fictional locales in northeastern Massachusetts featured in HP Lovecraft's stories. It's pretty close to completion and I wanted to get some feedback from a cartographic perspective.

Some things to consider:

The main point I'm concerned with at this point is how much more detail to put in. It's really easy to go overboard and dump everything into a map and make it completely unusable. So, should I put things in like the names of the counties in the state map? Names of the rivers on the main map? Landmarks, like Miskatonic U. and the Witch House (which are on the map, just not labeled), on the Arkham map? How much is too much?

Also what about the fonts. I like the Gothic one for the cities on the main map, but is it too much? It's hard to balance the character of the font with legibility. I know what the towns all are, but would someone unfamiliar with the mythos be able to look at the map and read it?

The frames around the insets: are they too flashy and do they take away from the rest of the map? Should I get rid of them for something simpler? I think they look alright, but I feel that the main map needs one around it as well. But then I'll have frames inside frames, and that looks kinda wonky.

Any other general suggestions: placement of the text, colors, things I haven't even thought of. Thanks

Lovecraft Country 2.jpg

Notes:

I got the idea for the map from, well, reading Lovecraft. I did a search for Lovecraft maps and found one which pretty much matches the main map and the state map (probably from the Call of Cthulhu rollplaying game). I traced it using a tablet into Illustrator, making a few changes. I also found a street map of Arkham that Lovecraft had drawn, and drew that in as well.

Thanks again

Veon

PS Man, the colors look weird in the attachment. They don't look anything like that when I view it on my machine. I'll work on that. It's also really small. That's what I get for working with vector images. I'll post a better image soon, but for now you get the idea.