Creating Rand McNally style road maps

[Quillz]

I asked a question similar to this before, but I can't seem to find it:

Companies such as AAA or Rand McNally make road maps that seem to have a common look to them. What software are they using? I'm currently taking a course on map design and topography that will use primarily Illustrator, which I'm very familiar with, and ArcGIS, which I'm told is a very commonly used program. Is that all I would need to create a similar style of maps?

Note that I would be using my own fictitious data. I have drawn many made up maps over the years and had an interest in attempting to digitize some of them.

[Henry]

This would be interesting to see! I wish I still had those old marked-up atlases so I could recreate my old highway ideas...

[Quillz]

This would be interesting to see! I wish I still had those old marked-up atlases so I could recreate my old highway ideas...

I have notebooks and probably thousands of sheets of paper littered with fictitious maps. I started when I was very young and over time, my ideas have gotten far more refined. I've created continents, countries, various classes of highways, etc. One of the reasons I've posted several conceptual highway shields here is that I would like to use them with my fake data.

[Scott5114]

If you want to use open source and free replacements for ArcGIS and Illustrator, get QGIS and Inkscape. QGIS is nowhere near as advanced as ArcGIS and you have to do some kludgy things to replace some of ArcGIS's basic functionality, but it does the job. For most things (maybe even all things) Inkscape is at least as powerful as Illustrator.

With just QGIS, you can make something simple like this:


Then, if you take the results of that and trace it in Inkscape, and do some judicious importing of vector graphics, you can get something like this:

(note these two images were made separately; I didn't make the bottom from the top)

Note that the best thing about GIS software is you can take existing, accurate data, apply a map projection to it, and have a map, as well as sort and filter geographic data (it's easy to run a query like "select all towns with population over 10,000" if your cities shapefile has a population field). In ArcGIS I believe you can apply styles to shapefiles based on data (i.e. you could set up a legend that would automatically draw dots of varying styles based on the population). QGIS lacking this functionality is its one major shortcoming.

That said if you are doing work with fictional places it would be easier to just do everything in Illustrator/Inkscape. With GIS you would have to enter each point and enter associated data to be interpreted by the GIS software. If you have many points then GIS becomes very processor-intensive since it has to constantly calculate the projection equations and such. It would be faster to just draw everything in Illustrator/Inkscape.

And if you are going to create road maps, don't create them in Rand McNally style. Sure, they're ubiquitous, but Rand McNally's legend is shit.

[Quillz]

I don't plan on using that exact style, per se, I just like the colors they use and the way they show freeways compared to streets on city maps. I just want to use that style as sort of a starting point.

[RoadWarrior56]

I love the classic Rand McNally cartagraphy from the 1960's and 1970's, with the heavy read lines for major two-lane roads, heavy green for freeways, etc.  I never liked the changes they made starting in 1980.

[mightyace]

^^^

Here, here.  I loved that era Rand McNally atlases myself.

[Rover_0]

==BUMP==
So, I'm just wondering, but where can you get the source data (routes, etc.)?

EDIT: Starting to get the hang of it on QGIS. I already have Inkscape and will try my hand at it when I have time.

[Scott5114]

For your non-highways stuff like county lines and rivers, the easiest source is the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line data. For routes, a basic source is FHWA's National Highway Planning Network (NHPN) data, though this sometimes misses out on some minor routes (especially in states like KY with a lot of routes). You might be able to find data sources on your state DOT website or even the site of a local university's geography department. Google "[state] [type of feature] shapefile" and you should be able to turn up what you need pretty easily.

[Rover_0]

Well, I found the state boundaries, and the NHPN data, though I'm not too big on the "squashed" projection. Is there a way to change that, or is that done in Inkscape? What CRS is involved with that? What's used on the Oklahoma map above?

Also, the lakes are slightly off as well. How do I change it to avoid overlaps?

Also, how do you differentiate between Interstate (freeways and tollways) and surface roads? Can you differentiate between US and State routes?

[Scott5114]

The "squashed" projection is what you get when you set no projection. You need to "enable on-the-fly projection" in the projection options in Inkscape and pick an appropriate projection. The Oklahoma map was done in Lambert Conformal Conic. This may also fix your lake issue.

GIS shapefiles essentially have a database table attached to them. (Right click the layer and click "Attribute table".) Each row is associated with a data point on the shapefile. (Imagine a simple shapefile that just has a dot where each city in a state is. The attribute table would probably have columns for each city's name, size, population, maybe year of incorporation, etc.) You can query this database to select data points that are of interest to you. So, depending on the information included by whoever made the shapefile, you might be able to query a highway shapefile by designation, type, functional class, AADT, number of lanes, pavement condition...

As of the latest version you can have Inkscape QGIS run multiple queries for you and style the output accordingly depending upon the results. (In previous versions, you had to manually query the attribute table and copy/paste the selections to new layers, and style each layer how you wished.)

[Mr Downtown]

Surely you mean to do the projection, attributes, etc., in QGIS, not Illustrator.

Yes, most of us mapmakers start projects in GIS software and shift them to Illustrator to finish them off nicely.  One big problem with GIS data (especially bad with TIGER stuff) is that it's too detailed.  Old scribed maps had nice smooth linework.  So I usually redraw railroads, highways, and water features in Illustrator and throw away the GIS linework.

For small-scale mapping, you'll find much nicer linework (including North American highways) at NaturalEarthVector.com   If you have questions, Cartotalk.com is where we working cartographers hang out.