When creating a thematic map where color represents different attribute values, there’s always the question of whether the color scheme you’ve selected will look good. and more importantly whether it will convey the information you’re trying to represent to its audience. Trial-and-error is one approach, but the ColorBrewer is a Flash web applet which lets you interactively experiment with different color schemes to see which ones work visually (and which ones don’t). It was created by Professor Cindy Brewer of Penn State University, author of Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users, and will run in any browser with Flash support.
ColorBrewer doesn’t actually display any of your data - it uses a dummy map of what appears to be counties in the US Southeast to plot different color schemes in sequential, diverging or qualitative fashions. It’s not intended as a data plotter, just to evaluate the visual impact of different color schemes. Inputs include:
- Number of classes
- Sequential, diverging or qualitative schemes
- Mini-legends (pre-built color schemes)
- Turning map borders, city symbols, road networks on and off
- Selectable colors for map borders, city symbols, road networks, and the map’s background color.
Here’s a screenshot of the application in action (click on the image for a larger view):
Other posts in the Cartography Tools series
- PDFCreator
- Printing Large Maps On A Small Printer
- Printing Waterproof Maps
- Public Land Survey Systems (PLSS) Shapefiles And Geocoding
- Screen Capture Programs
- Free Map Symbols
- In-Browser Web Page Image Capture
- Better Map Color Schemes With ColorBrewer
- New "Fixed" Versions Of SRTM-90 Data Available
- US/Global Terrain Shading Data And Landcover Imagery
- “Making Maps” Blog
- Highway Sign Fonts
- Analyzing Visual Clutter In Maps With Software
- Downloadable Cartograms From Worldmapper
- Creating Map Color Schemes With Kuler And ColorBrewer
- Additional Color Applications For Maps And Design
- One More Color Design Resource
- Tiling And Printing Large Maps To Scale On A Small Printer
- Recoloring Or Modifying GeoTiff Images
- More Color Design Resources
- Evaluating Map Graphics For Color-Blind Viewers
- Calculate New Coordinate Position From Current Position, Bearing And Distance
- Tiling Large Maps For A Small Printer With PosteRazor
Excellent tool, I’ve been using it for quite some time now. And by the way, congrats for the brand new hosting and name.
Comment by Ian Turton, brought over to the new blog:
People interested in presenting their data using these color schemes may like to know that the colorbrewer package is supported by GeoTools and UDig.