Activity 06
Final project proposal
| Assigned | Due | Submit |
|---|---|---|
10/22/26 |
10/29/26 |
The final project has arrived! In this assignment, you’ll sketch out a proposal and submit it as an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) file to Canvas by Thursday 10/29/26. This activity is worth 6 points instead of the usual 3 points.
Create a new file in Adobe Illustrator
For this assignment, you will use Adobe Illustrator to create a pitch. You could draft some of the text in a normal Google/Word doc, but the submitted work must be in .ai format. Your answers should be typed in 10-12 point font, except for the tone question, as it may be helpful to test different font size pairings to figure out tone.
Download this template to get started.
Questions
The template includes five questions. You could draw on your answers from the form you completed last week to get started.
What’s your keyword?
In your proposal, specify two of these keywords that you would be interested in using to frame for your broader project. You should be able to reasonably apply either of the topics to your proposed project. See if you can fit one of the keywords into a title for your project/map.
| Environments | Concepts | Processes | Representations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landscape | Place/belonging | Bordering | Figure-ground |
| Earth system | Region | Heterogeneity | Projections |
| Watershed | Gradient | Connectivity | Colors |
| Sustainability | Scale | Narrative | Maps as art |
| Urban systems | Power | Justice | Lettering |
What’s your topic?
Your topic refers to the actual empirics of your proposed map. Plainly, what is it about? Write a paragraph about it, including at least one citation. The citation could be scholarly or journalistic.
What’s your story?
Instead of starting with a research question, I want you to start with a story question. Cartography and data visualization are about transforming data into succint visual arguments, yes… but they are also about weaving together a graphic narrative. So, what is the story that you want to tell? And why is a map necessary to tell your story?
Consider that maps…
- are (usually) easy to read
- inherit the biases of their makers
- can be unreliable narrators
- make meaning
- make arguments
- require constraints
- can be persuasive
What’s your tone?
Your story needs a tone. It might be somber, joyful, playful, serious, etc. You can set tone with colors, fonts, and many other things.
In this section, craft a tone by selecting at least proposing three colors; selecting two fonts (minimally, one serif and one sans serif); and writing one sentence that names the tone and describes it.
You can convey these choices any way you want, so long as it fits in the box in the template.
What’s your data?
With your proposal, I want you to identify two datasets. But please don’t just suggest any old dataset that you find online. Each dataset should meet one of the criteria below:
- An analytic dataset. This could be a derivative dataset that you will produce through some kind of analysis (e.g., the summarized census tracts that we made for the district profiles), or it could be an original dataset that you create/designed
- A reference dataset that you will use to make a basemap (e.g., consisting of data from roads, hillshade, borders, boundaries). Depending on what kind of tone you want to set, this could be very minimal
Be as specific as possible here, including sources/repositories where you expect to access the data.
Meet with me
Finally, book a time to meet with me by Tuesday, November 5. It will be a low-pressure conversation, probably no more than 10 mins, where we talk a bit about your ideas for a final map and how to refine them. The meeting is worth 50% of your grade for this activity, and we can meet before or after you’ve turned in the assignemnt. Click this link to book a meeting. We can also have our conversation in class if there is time during open labs (but you should still book something no matter what).
Deliverables
| Assigned | Due | Submit |
|---|---|---|
10/22/26 |
10/29/26 |
This assignment is due via Canvas by 10/29/26, and note that it must be turned in as a .ai file!
You should book a meeting with me by November 5.