Module 8: Proportional Symbol Mapping

This weeks assignment was to compare the different capabilities of ArcMap and Adobe Illustrator in making proportional symbol maps.  To do this, we were required to create a map displaying the same phenomenon - wine consumption in European countries - in these two programs.

A proportional symbols map uses standard shapes/symbols of varying sizes assigned to each enumeration unit with a size proportional to the relative value of that phenomenon.  I chose to use solid and translucent circles to map wine consumption in European countries.  The top map was created in ArcMap, the bottom in Adobe Illustrator.  Symbol and text placement was difficult because the large size of some symbols inherent overlap with neighbors.  To combat this I moved some symbols to minimize overlap and shrunk some text for the same reason.  Overall, this lab provided an opportunity to become more familiar with AI and it's symbol editing features.