Reply With QuoteI love the style of the map itself, it's very clear. You could try making the stroke around the letters the same color as the background and the letters themselves one of the darker colors you have, right now they kind of blend in
Help with Labels
So I've almost finished this little regional map but before I post it in Finished I'd like to sort out the labels. So far I've messed with them for about three hours but I still can't get that polished look that most people here achieve.
Any help would be appreciated.
map-min.jpg
I love the style of the map itself, it's very clear. You could try making the stroke around the letters the same color as the background and the letters themselves one of the darker colors you have, right now they kind of blend in
Beautiful map! I too would feel hesitant to cover any of the lovely linework with broad 'glows' around labels, but that's about the only way they're going to have enough contrast to be visible. If you could use a totally different color for labels, that would make them jump out, but you already have a gorgeous look with just black/white/blue. Definitely try micaholism's suggestion to flip to dark text and see if that works.
There are only a few labels - is that all you intend? Maybe you could be blatant about their need for visibility and put them each on a little scroll with blank background - something of that sort.
I only can read the guild sporadically these days, so I'm going to give you some rep right now, regardless of what you work out with the labels - I *really* like the overall map!
Drawing anything in white on a map meant to look in any way hand draw or painted or whatever is going to be a a glaringly obvious sign it wasn't. It's not practical to make white ink like regular dark ink. What you get is more like a thin paint than an ink. It has to work differently and has different properties. Think about using correction fluid like Whiteout. It sits on top of the page rather than seeping into it. It's thick, imprecise, and not very durable. Generally you produce white on a hand drawn map by not drawing anything and precisely controlled areas of not drawing are not practical for something as precise and detail dependant as labels.
The way a map like this would probably be done if completely by hand including labels would be to add the area fill symbols like the trees, mountains, and so on after the labels so that they can leave adequate room. On a computer this can be faked, although its still a lot of work (I've done it for one map although it was quite label light) You remove or reposition any symbols that aren't directly representations of feature geometry which interfere with the label. (You can move a tree if it's part of an abstract forest symbol, but not if it represents the specific location of a real tree) It's also important to position the label carefully, including adjustments to the individual letters even if you aren't adjusting fill symbols as it also works to get the labels to fit around the symbols that are direct representations of geometry like rivers, coastlines, or point symbols and so can't be moved or removed.
For a hand drawn look, it's also important to make the labels look like they were drawn with the same or similar tools and media as the rest of the map. A single stroke should have a consistent look. Reasonably close in thickness (the fictional cartographer might have different pens but there's a limit here) and the level of detail should be similar, as should any roughness or distortion as everything is being drawn on the same paper. This also limits how much you can scale a font and use it on the same map. (The aforementioned map had a complete one off symbol set and font all designed to match. I had to limit the range of sizes of the labels to avoid needing to make a second font, except for a bit of one off text I just wrote in directly)
You might also want to expand your letter spacing, particularly on curves. Multiline labels are also something I really try to avoid unless it's for something like a stack of different attributes, but that's more common on thematic or navigational maps than in reference maps like this.
Thanks for all the good info guys! I'll try some new things out today or tomorrow and see how the updates go.
So I've taken the suggestions and found something I really like, so far. Here's two examples over different background for readability purposes.
I've used the black font, and taken my paper texture from various spots in the background to use as the highlight. Hopefully I got the spacing right, and I've chosen the font based on the fact it's the closest in texture to what my actual pens make.
wip map.jpg
Again, thanks for all the help, hopefully I'll come up with some actually names and get this finished in a day or two.
I'd suggest more spacing on the area label, and less on the point label. (I assume Carynth is the blue dot) It's a good idea to give area labels like that a bit of a curve and to try to suggest the extent of the area it represents.Originally Posted by Samstego
Carynth's label would probably also be better positioned on the same side of the river as the symbol and its a good idea to avoid clipping meaningful geometry like the river with a label. Sometimes you can't avoid putting a label on the far side of a a line, or having to cover something important, but it's best to avoid it if you can.
One thing that would probably help you immensely is Eduard Imhof's Positioning Names on Maps
Here's a section of one of my maps with several areas of varying sizes labelled. There's also a label in the southeast where I had to get a bit creative with letter spacing control.
labels.png
Thanks again for all the help, I'll report back after some testing. As much as I'd love to do some curvy labels I'm so far having trouble getting gimp to do what I want in that respect. Maybe I'll try another program and see how it works out.
Another thing that help differentiate different labels is using caps, small caps, regular and italic. This way you can use one single font, keeping every thing clean and organized, while still having the benefit of differentiating between label types (Nations, seas, forests, capitals, cities etc.).
So, went with a different font, trying out differing styles, and attempting curves and better positioning.
Here's the small trial which took way longer than it should have, namely because I have to do the text in Inkscape and copy the paths over to gimp for effects.
wip map1.jpeg
Hopefully in the right direction?
Last edited by Samstego; 02-01-2018 at 04:56 PM.
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