Designing Tapered Rivers with Flowing Styles

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Ortelius has always had great tools to create smooth meandering rivers & streams. Now they can look even better with naturally tapering ends. We’ve added an expert Tapered Stroke component to the Style Inspector – you can use it to design your own creative map styles. Here’s how… Read more »

Tags: cartographic technique, drawing rivers on maps, map design, map making, map style, map symbol, tapered river, tutorial

Randomized Patterns Make Interesting Map Fills

Ortelius Tutorials 3 Comments

Randomized patterns can add texture and variety to an otherwise flat map. This is an especially good effect for representing features with naturally occurring randomness, such as ground-cover and forests. Ortelius has several tools in the Style Inspector to help you make awesome randomized patterns. Here’s how…

Making Fun Map Title Text in Ortelius

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Whether formal or informal, your choice of fonts will set the mood and help to weave the story being told by your map. Map text doesn’t need to be dry and stodgy. Introduce a creative element in you next map graphic through the use of text shapes with custom fill styles. The key to success with this approach is moderation – for example, get creative with the title and choose a complimentary font throughout the rest of your map that is simple and unassuming. Your goal is to express a bit of whimsy while maintaining legibility and overall balance.

Make a Dot Screen Pattern Map Style

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Ortelius is loaded with styles and symbols. You can also create your own. Here we show how to create a dot screen pattern. Read more »

Tags: cartography, cartography software, map style, map symbol, pattern fill

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