Mapping the Gibraltar Upper Rock Nature Reserve

One of the projects I worked on last year was to create maps for the Gibraltar Upper Rock Nature Reserve.

Wright Tech Media was involved with rebranding the marketing for the nature reserve and wanted a new brochure and map. They weren’t happy with their existing map and contacted me to create a new, cleaner map to help visitors easily find all the attractions.

It was to be an informative national park map, rather than only a trails map, and be included in a brochure and digital download that people could purchase as a fundraiser for the reserve.

As always, I first provide layout drafts for the desired coverage area and map dimensions: one map is zoomed in to the reserve, and one shows all of Gibraltar and the entry points to the reserve.

black and white layout draft showing the Gibraltar coastline and zoomed in to the boundaries of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve in grey- landscape orientation
black and white layout draft showing all of Gibraltar coastline and boundaries of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve in grey - portrait orientation

Next I sent two style options with some of the colours from their new website.

portrait orientation map of Gibraltar with shaded relief base - Gibraltar in very pale green, Nature Reserve in darker green; major roads in white; airport, cruise terminal, parking, bus stop, and taxi stands shown with symbols; with coloured teardrop-shaped map pointers representing e-bike tours, private tours, and dolphin adventure tour; surrounding sea is a dark blue
portrait orientation map of Gibraltar with shaded relief base - Gibraltar in light green, Nature Reserve in darker green; major roads in white with black outline; airport, cruise terminal, parking, bus stop, and taxi stands shown with symbols; with coloured dots representing e-bike tours, private tours, and dolphin adventure tour; surrounding sea in light blue fading to lighter blue near land

They preferred the first style with the darker water. The next few drafts we worked on different ways to show the entrance points, more eye-catching symbols for the tours, and added numbered parking lots and put them in a legend.

Here’s the final draft of the A4 map, showing all of Gibraltar.

final draft of A4 portrait orientation map of Gibraltar, with dark blue sea, Gibraltar land area in pale green, nature reserve in darker green, airport and ports in grey; airplane symbol for airport, ship symbol for cruise terminal, red squares for entrance points to Gibraltar and reserve; black bus symbol for coach parking; bright blue dolphin symbol for dolphin tours, purple taxi symbol for private tour pickup locations, green bicycle for e-bikes; each of the experience locations is also identified with the same coloured teardrop map marker for the pick-up locations; lighthouse symbol on south point; numbered parking locations; three legend boxes - one for map symbols, one for parking locations, one for experience pick up locations

Once my clients chose the style, I worked on both maps at the same time and sent them together for review. Here are a few stages of the A3 map focusing on the nature reserve.

For the first draft I added the reserve attractions with yellow markers and added parking lots, taxi stands, museums, and more from OpenStreetMap data of the area. This was to show my clients the data publicly available for the area.

first draft of A3 landscape orientation map with dark blue water, pale green Gibraltar land area and darker green nature reserve; reserve landmarks indicated with yellow map pointer; roads in white; port area in grey; general map symbols for parking lots, public toilets, hospital, museum, bus station in all of Gibraltar

My clients wanted to try adding some photos and a list of key reference points to the next draft – the red box around the edge represents the print-safe area. I usually add this for early drafts to make sure important information will not be cut off in print.

draft of A3 landscape orientation map of Gibraltar - dark blue water, pale green Gibraltar land area and darker green nature reserve; reserve landmarks indicated with oranage map pointer; red squares identify park entrances;roads in white; port area in grey; general map symbols for parking lots, public toilets, hospital, museum, bus station in all of Gibraltar; photos of major attractions surround the map; legend with 4 key reference locations and arrows pointing to those numbered locations on the map

They decided against the images and key reference points and sent me a final list of locations for the map, so I removed the OSM data and used my clients chosen taxi stands and parking lots provided in kmz files. There were some changes in symbols and colours, and here’s the final draft of the A3 map of the reserve.

final draft of A3 landscape orientation map of Gibraltar Nature Reserve, with dark blue sea, Gibraltar land area in pale green, nature reserve in darker green, airport and ports in grey; ship symbol for cruise terminal, red squares for entrance points to Gibraltar and reserve; black bus symbol for coach parking; black taxi symbols for taxi stands; bright blue dolphin symbol for dolphin tours, purple taxi symbol for private tour pickup location, green bicycle for e-bikes; numbered parking locations; two legend boxes - one for general map symbols, one for experience pick up locations and cable car stations; in the reserve - yellow markers for attractions, brown Macaque symbol for pack locations, blue binocular symbol for viewpoints, symbols for public toilets

The map hasn’t been released yet but I’ll share a link to purchase the map as soon as it’s available.

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