Lab #2: Red State, Blue State...

Shayda Haghgoo

Professor Shin
Geography 167

Map Creation and Imitation

By imitating the exact geographical depiction of the New York Times 2008 Presidential Election Results, the appropriateness of color, labeling and visual representation in general becomes understood in great depth. New York Times does a good job in conveying the competition between Obama and McCain, though, nonetheless the map can be further improved. Although a map key included in the map layout, the blue in the map key is not the same color as the blue used on the map. It is important to not confuse colors on a map because that may confuse the message. Furthermore, the labeling of the states looks sloppy and semi-neglected. The negligence is observed in the Northeast area of the U.S. where most of New England does not have the name of the states shown and the fact that some states are fully written out, like Idaho and Alaska, while others have funky abbreviations, like Kentucky, exhibits a sloppiness in map labeling. Lastly, it is also imperative to include how many electoral votes each state holds because although there may be more of one color on the map it may not correlate the winner of the election since some big states may not be as populated and hold as many electoral votes as smaller states.

Figure 1. 2008 Map of Presidential Election Results by the New York Times.

Figure 2. Map imitation of the New York Times President Map, recreated through ArcGIS