Knowing your audience

While every mapmaker strives to make the most visually appealing map they can imagine, you have to remember that the purpose of a map is to convey data clearly to your audience. In my career, I have made maps for planners, engineers, rangers, hydrologists, lawyers, field crews, surveyors, elected officials, and the public, just to name a few. If I was working on one project that involved all of those groups, each map of that project would be different than the other. Finding out who the audience of a map is? should be one of your first objectives.

With this figured out, you have a clearer goal of what data you will need and how to show it. Don't be afraid to ask questions; a lot of times you can be pulled into a project in which you have no background. It is more appropriate to ask a lot of questions in the beginning, rather than in the middle or towards the end of a project.

I typically ask the following questions when I get pulled into a project:

• Who is the audience of the map?
• What are you trying to show?
• Does any data already exist?
• Will there be any analysis?
• Will this be updated regularly to show progress/change?

With these questions answered, I can usually feel comfortable enough to start a project. This will help me form a guide on how to formulate a work plan to solve this mapping problem.