Tutorial Cartography for Map Figures in Academic Journals & Books: What Story Are You Telling?

2. Steps in Making a Map for a Journal Figure

2.1. What Story Are You Telling?

The very first thing you need to do is understand what story you need to tell. Why are you making this map? What should the reader learn from this map?

Here's one real life example. I made a set of maps for a professor in Sociology. He was writing a book about cinemas in Paris. He needed readers to understand the location of the cinemas he wrote about in relation to other key features like subway lines and streets. So that's the story - where are the cinemas in relation to the streets and subways?

Map of incident locations published in Smoodin, E. 2020. Paris in the Dark: Going to the Movies in the City of Light, 1930–1950. Duke University Press.