A Designing Research On Map Illustrations In Publications

As an important source of information, publications play an important role in the ideological communication, academic exchange and technique transmission. At the same time, illustration is more and more used in publications because it is more intuitionistic and pellucid than text. With the improvement of printing technology and the popularization of culture and education, the number of plane media, such as newspapers and magazines, is growing rapidly. The illustration has become an indispensable part in the publications. The maps, as one of the most important and wildly-used illustrations, can easily express the complex special or logical location relationships clear, while the texts can't. The map illustrations are gaining an increasingly large proportion in various publications, especially in the science and technology ones.However, the map illustrations have not received sufficient attention and research. Many of the map illustrations appeared in the publications are non-professional and roughly-made, conveying misleading information, affecting the overall effect of publication.In this paper, I first analyze the advantages and disadvantages of map illustrations in publications of domestic and abroad, and summarize the characteristics of them. Then I focus on the research on how to design and manufacture map illustrations in a more scientific way, in order to make them easy to be understood.The organization of the thesis is as follows.In chapter one, the research background and purpose of this thesis is firstly given, and the importance of researching the map illustrations in publications is also discussed.In chapter two, I provide the definition of maps and illustrations respectively, summarize the research status of map illustrations, which serves a theoretical basis to the design and manufacture of map illustrations.In chapter three, I analyze the functions, characteristics and problems of different map illustrations, according to conventional wisdom in the field.Chapter four is the main part of the thesis, and in which we introduced the principles and methods of designing map illustrations. A set of case map illustrations suitable to different type of publications is given. In chapter five, I summarize what I have done in the study process, posed the problems that need for further study, and gave a prospect on the developing trend of map illustrations.