Guide to a successful map project part 4

Most of the time I provide a raster image (JPG/TIF/PNG) for my clients to include in their own designs, such as books, posters, brochures, etc.

Sometimes my clients ask me to create the full graphic layout for city tourist and cycling maps or brochures. These will include additional graphic and text elements around the map or on the back of the folding map or brochure.

Do you need a cartographer to design a template as part of the final product?

I have several templates that I use as starting points, for varying sizes of large folding maps such as you’d find for a city cycling map, or smaller brochures often used by tourism marketing organizations or businesses. These include fold lines to help me organize the panel content, and I export the vector files with printer and trim marks for my clients to send to their printing company.

sample layout of inside of letter-sized tourism brochure with trim marks and fold lines, and example locations for images and text content

And sometimes, such as with larger municipalities, their internal design or communications departments provide me with PDFs of the panel content for me to add to my template.

For the City of Mississauga’s cycling map, I designed the map in 2017 and have updated it a few times since then, and they send me the fully-designed panels to add to my layout

screenshot of one side of large folding Mississauga cycling map with cover and back panels provided by my client
If the cartographer will be designing the full layout, what type of additional content is needed?

When clients ask me to design the panel content, I ask them to provide me with text copy and high-resolution image files. For the City of Burlington, I redesigned a couple of their panels with updated text copy and found some photos and images to include.

I’ve also worked on several tourist map projects where my clients find sponsors for the map. They send me logos and contact information to include around the map.

detail of advertiser information on sponsored tourist map

Additional content for brochures and folding maps can include logos, photos, business information, community events, tourist info, etc.

This map of Kingsville is one of the recent tourism brochures I designed:

Tourist map of Kingsville Ontario
Tourist map of Kingsville Ontario

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If you are ready to start your mapping project, contact me for a free consultation.

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