How to make a map in Adobe Illustrator (Oregon)

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In this project-centered course*, you will create a content-rich infographic on a topic of your choice using Adobe Illustrator (which you can download for a free, 30-day trial). You might choose to create a visual representation of data from the world of sports, entertainment, politics, or science, to explain a business trend or environmental issue, or even to present a theme or development from your personal life. Your finished infographic will engage your target audience and convey information clearly through effective use of design elements such as typography, color, and structure. Whether you’re a graphic designer, a writer or the intern in the department, you’ll learn: • what an infographic is and what makes a good one • how to work within your limits • how to work with a team (if you have one) • why infographics are effective • techniques for spotting data in stories • six valuable steps for planning an effective infographic • how to use and make some of the building blocks of infographics: maps, charts and flow charts • ways data can be visualized to clarify it and give it meaning • how to effectively design a good infographic by effectively using elements like type, color and an underlying grid structure • some free or cheap, online tools for making various kinds of infographics As you work on your project, you’ll learn more about why infographics are effective, what makes a good infographic, and how to plan and design an infographic for maximum impact. You’ll explore various approaches to data visualization, and you’ll practice creating visualizations like maps, charts, flow charts, and simple drawings in your free version of Adobe Illustrator. Please note that if you are new to learning graphics software, making these graphics could take much longer than estimated as you learn and grow. What you’ll need to get started: This project-based course is aimed at anyone interested in understanding, designing, and using infographics - from students and hobbyists to professional graphic designers. We’ll use Adobe Illustrator for some components of the project. If you don’t have access to the full version of Illustrator,you can download a free version at www.Adobe.com/Illustrator. If the free 30-day trial runs out, you can "purchase" it for a month for about $20. *About Project-Centered Courses: Project centered courses are designed specifically to help you complete a personally meaningful real-world project, with your instructor and a community of like-minded learners providing guidance and suggestions along the way. By actively applying new concepts as you learn, you’ll master the course content more efficiently; you’ll also get a head start on using the skills you gain to make positive changes in your life and career. When you complete the course, you’ll have a finished project that you’ll be proud to use and share. When you enroll in certain courses, you’ll be asked to pay a small fee to share your work with others for peer review.

De la lección

Make a map

How to make a map in Adobe Illustrator (Oregon)24:14

How to use and how NOT to use the pen tool2:13

Conoce a los instructores

Karl Gude
Graphics Editor in Residence
School of Journalism

Hi everyone, Karl Gude here.

I'm going to show you how to draw a map in Adobe Illustrator CC.

First thing, in a place map that I downloaded off the internet to use

as reference.

I'm going to go to the word file and say place and navigate to my desktop and

I have a map of Oregon here.

I'm going to draw a box that is roughly the size of the map that I want to draw.

I can resize it later.

So then I have my map placed, I'm going to come up to the word Window and

I'm going to go to Layers or I can come over to this palette on the right here and

I can choose Layers off the Layers icon.

I want to make layers on my map, so that I can organize my information logically.

So I'm going to create about three or four different layers here.

The very bottom layer is where my reference map is.

And if I double-click on this layer,

I get an information box that would allow me to dim the image.

So it mimics having tracing paper over the top of the image.

It makes it a little bit easier to see what you're drawing.

So I'm going to click dim images to 50%, and I’m going to say, OK.

I can also name that layer just by the book clicking on it and cling it base map.

On the next layer, I'm going to be putting my water.

On the next layer, I'm going to be putting my land.

On the layer after that I'm going to be putting my roads and such.

And I'll add another layer above that and I'm going to put labels, oops.

Labels, like city labels.

And I'm going to make sure I'm clicked on that layer when I'm drawing that element.

So I'm going to start with the land.

I'm going to click on the land layer, close that window, and

I'm going to zoom in by hitting Cmd + +, or I can come over to this microphone, and

I can click and drag back and forth to zoom in on the area that I want.

I'm going to simplify the coastline a little bit so

that we're not spending all this time watching me draw this map.

But you get the idea, I'm going to click on the pen tool and

make sure that there's no fill.

I'm going to just have a line here.

That line can be any color I want so long as I can see it.

Oregon is a different color than the surrounding states and

I want to leave it that way.

So I'm going to draw Oregon as it's own shape, its own polygon so

I can fill it with a color.

All of the other states I'm going to make all the same color, so

I'm going to draw one big shape for those states and you'll see what I mean.

Now before I start drawing more again, I'm going to go off to the side here,

show you a little bit how to use the pen tool.

The pen tool is tricky.

You want to make sure, again, that there's no fill because if there's a fill,

as you draw the shape is going to keep filling in,

it'll cover up the map that you're drawing from using as reference.

So I'm going to get my pen tool and

there are a couple of tricks about drawing with the pen tool.

Very simply, you want to make sure that you click and you drag.

And click and drag.

And imagine this is a little detail of a coastline click and

drag that I'm tracing over.

Clicking and dragging, clicking and

dragging, clicking and dragging, and so on.

What you don't want to do when you're clicking and

dragging is you don't want to cross, I call it cross swords,

cross the adjustment handles and this is an adjustment handle.

And if I let go of this you will see that there is the actual that is going to print

but this green thing with the little balls on each end is

not going to print that is just and adjustment handle.

And it's for changing the shape of the curve later and

manipulating it so you can get it more precise.

It doesn't have to be precise the first time you draw it.

So I don't have to come back to this point to start my curve continued.

This is already selected that point and it's ready for receiving the next point.

So I'm going to click over here and drag.

Do you see the adjustment handle coming out of this point?

It is now crossing the other adjustment handle.

Do you see, it's making an x there, kind of like crossing swords.

If you keep doing that, it's going to cause these misshapes in your line.

So if I keep doing it this way, and this way, and

this way, you'll start getting these misshapes.

because you're drawing way too far.

You're exaggerating that adjustment handle way too far.

So when you're drawing again.

You want to keep especially with a short little coastline.

You want to keep those adjustment handles away from each other.

So I'm going to click and

this if I start to get close to that it's going to create a bump in my line.

Fine, so I'm going to just stay away, and same with this one,

I'm just going to stay away.

And then I'm going to curve and stay away.

And you're going to want to pull in the direction you're kind of going

with that adjustment handle.

Make sure that the line behind it is doing what you want it to do.

And if it's not, you can see it's forming it right there.

Don't let go, just keep sort of getting that shape about where you want it and

then let go, handles away from each other.

So now let's go over to Oregon and I'm going to go ahead and start in the corner

here and I'm going to just draw, I'm going to simplify this coastline.

What you might want to do is go really in, very close and draw every detail.

It depends on what the map's going to be used for and

what size it's going to be used.

If it's going to be very large you want to make sure that you get a lot of detail on

that coast line.

If it's not, you can be a little more vague about the coast line and

I'll show every single inlet.

So you can see here that I'm clicking and dragging and clicking and dragging.

There is a little inlet there, so I'm going to just come up to the side there,

click and drag.

See how short those adjustment handles are?

And continue up.

There's a little bump right there, and I'm just going to go click, click, no pulling.

And come up to the beginning of the Columbia River there.

And I'm going to go along the coastline here.

And now I'm going to just draw along the Columbia River.

There's Portland coming all the way along like this.

Around this corner dragging with two fingers on my pad up to move the map up.

You can also hold the spacebar down to move the hand up.

Move the map up you're going to hand and continue with your drawing Now we're back

to straight lines and I'm going to click on here and finish that off there.

So if I zoom out by going command 10 minus minus, you can see there's Oregon and

that looks fine.

Let's fill this in with a color.

I'm going to go ahead and click on the Fill box here and

put the Line color box in the background.

You see that's the stroke.

When I click on this it says fill.

Whatever's in the foreground is what's going to happen.

And I'm going to go ahead and just click a color.

And now that's green.

So here I'm going to go ahead and, now I'm going to double check and

make sure I'm on the right layer.

You know what I'm going to double click on this land and Im going to call it Oregon.

And then under it I'm going to click on the layer below it and

I'm going to create a new layer and I'm going to call it other states.

Why not?

Just get down on those layers.

So, now I'm going to be on the other state's layer and

I can turn Oregon on and off.

I'm going to turn it off for now and

make sure I'm still on the other states because I'm going to be drawing there.

And I'm going to get my pen tool and

zoom in a little bit and draw those other states very simply.

Now watch what I'm about to do here.

I am not going to redraw this coastline.

The map of Oregon is going to be on a layer above what I'm drawing now,

so whatever I do now is going to be covered by the map of Oregon.

So I'm just going to ignore that complete coastline there.

Do you see what's happening?

I am drawing with a fill turned on, and that's why I say don't draw with a fill.

So I'm going to hit the escape key and get out of that pen tool and

I'm going to click on no fills so I get back.

And when I go back and pick up that point and go ahead and

continue this Oregon Coast.

Now again I'm being very simple and vague here.

I'm going to come to this corner, hold the space bar down and

drag this down and come back here and come over here.

And so now I have drawn those other states and I can click on the swatch tools again,

swatch colors and let's just pick the color randomly right now and

we'll make that orange.

And now watch what happens when I come to my layers palette and

I turn Oregon back on.

It covers up that little messy job I did under here.

So what you can also use the polygon above what you're drawing to cover up the map.

There's no need to redraw.

A boarder's up there going to be behind another of shape.

I need to turn off those two layers.

And I'm going to go to my roads layer and

I'm going to draw some roads, to give you an idea of how to draw them.

And it is drawn just like,

I'm making a mistake of drawing again with the filler color on so

I'm going to come over here And hit No Fill, without even leaving the Pen tool.

And I'm just going to draw route five, coming down.

I'm going to be very general about this.

The important thing is that you would be spending the time to draw this

really well.

And I am just showing you in general how to do this.

Clicking and dragging all the way down and now I'm going to hit the Escape tool.

And get out of that Pen tool.

So, now I have my two roads and those are on the roads layer.

If you look carefully here,

you can see there is the image of the elements that are on that layer.

This circle off to the right of the layer, just as a selection bar,

it will select everything that's on that layer, so

I click that circle, it will select both roads.

I'm going to click on the Shapes tool and

you can see there are different things you can do.

I'm on the Ellipse tool and I'm going to, if I hold down the Option+Shift key,

I can draw out from the center.

If you don't hold down the Option key and

just the Shift key, it'll draw from the side.

If you don't hold down either, it'll be hard to conform that to a circle.

So I'm holding down Option+Shift and drawing out from the center, and

you can see I have a Line Color but No Fill, and

I dont really need a line on this, I just wanted it to be a fill.

So what I'm going to do is I can just drag that color into the Fill Color and

then I can just click leave the Line Color in front and say No Line.

And now I just have a circle.

So I'm going to hold down the Option key and hover over the circle.

And if I click and drag, it actually will duplicate that circle.

But first, now before I do that, I want to shrink it down.

Hold the Shift key down and just drag to the side.

And drag it diagonally.

And now, I'm going to hold the Option key down and duplicate a few of these.

And I'm going to just spread them around.

Here, we'll put one at Redmond.

So now we have all of those cities.

One thing I neglected to do is to lock my base map.

Do you see these blue lines coming through?

That's an x that means that the background map is selected.

And I don't want to accidentally move it, I forgot to lock it.

So, I'm going to click the lock space right here next to the eyeball and

I can always turn off that eyeball to see how my map is looking too.

So, I'm going to go back to the roads and I'm going to click on these roads, or

I could just select in the selection thing and I'm going to make them red.

So, I'm going to come up to the Swatches palette and I'm going to make sure that

I can also switch between line and fill here, and here it actually

has the line in the foreground, so I'm going to click a red color for that.

Now, you'll see that when I changed the roads to red, it actually turned

the outline to all of my cities red also because they were on that layer, and

when I selected the circle to the right of the layer here,

it selected everything on that layer.

So I mistakenly drew my circles on that layer and

I want them to be on the same layer as my label, so

I'm going to do Cmd + Z or Ctrl + Z on the PC to undo that.

I'm going to deselect these roads just by clicking on the background.

I want to select all of the dots that I drew here.

I don't want to hold the Shift, I could hold the Shift key down and

go through and select them all, but

I know that they're the only think I have that is filled in black.

I have a black line here, but these are the only things that are filled in black.

So I can go Select > Same > Fill Color and it will select all of those dots.

Now that those dots are selected,

you see that there is this little blue square next to the circle on that layer.

That blue square indicates what layer those dots are on and

to move them to a new layer, all I have to do is click on that square and

drag it up to the new layer.

So now I know that my city dots are not on my roads and

I can just hide those dots by turning them off.

Go back to my roads layer and click on the select on that layer, or

I could hold the Shift key down and select the two roads.

And now I'll go back and I'm going to color them red.

And that's great, go back to my layers.

I'm going to lock the roads layer.

Go to the Labels layer and turn that back on.

And so I'm going to go ahead and add some type to this.

I'm going to click on the T for type, and I'm going to click here,

and I'm going to type in Portland.

Portland, now that's a big typeface, so I'm going to double-click on that.

And Myriad Pro is the font that it is, and that's fine.

You can make it whatever font you want.

So I'm going to go ahead and reduce that down to about 8 point type and

this is an extra dot.

Remember, I duplicated just to resize it.

I think I'm going to just delete that.

So I'm going to go ahead and slide Portland right under there.

Anything you drag holding down the Shift key in Adobe Illustrator will

duplicate it.

And I'm going to double click on this and I'm going to call it Salem.

And I'm going to reduce this mark because it's a smaller town.

So I'll make this 6 point and that is starting to get very small for a map.

So you can always make sure that the map is large, the right size when you drive or

you can resize it later.

You know it's hard for

me, it's hard to see that I have something selected because it's the color yellow.

So if I want to change the color of the layer, I just have to double click on it,

go to the color thing and make it brown or how about brick red?

And now when I select it, you can see it a lot better.

So there, I have my cities and I want to make sure they're very carefully

positioned, I'm going to bump it up against there and hit two spaces over, so

they're all exactly the same.

You want your map to look very clean and professional.

I'm going to turn on my ugly colored Oregon and

other states, just so we can see.

And you can see how I'm starting to get a map.

And what I'm going to do now is go get some better colors and

I'm going to click on the Swatches palette.

And pop open, if I go into this corner thing, I can click on that and

go down to Open Swatch Library, and there's something there that's called

Earthtones which I think is probably a good color for maps or tan color.

And I'm going to click on Oregon and

I'm going to make that a lighter version of that color.

So already that looks better.

And all I need to do to make the ocean happen is to go to the Layers palette and

comeback and click on the water.

And since,

remember the things in the foreground will block things in the background, so

all I need to do is click on the Shapes tool, get a rectangle and draw a box.

And I then have to just come here to the layers and color that box a color.

So, you can see this is beginning to look like a map,

I'm missing some borders right now so I'm going to go ahead and

go back to my Layers and I'm going to turn off the other states.

And I'm going to actually turn off the water too, because that's just in the way

and I'm going to zoom in and we'll just knock in a couple of borders here.

And click on the Pen tool again, make sure there is no Fill,

make sure I'm on the Other states layer and that it is visible.

If you get the pencil with a circle and a line through it, meaning and

you can't draw anything, it's either going to be because the layer

is turned off as far as the eyeball is concerned or there's a lock on it.

So I'm going to turn the layer back on, and the problem with that is

I want to be able to draw those borders but this polygon covers that.

So one thing I can do is I can create a new layer above that and call it borders,

or I can click on the polygons that make up the other states and

I can go up to Object > Hide > Selection, or Cmd+3.

And so, it's just hiding temporarily while I go ahead and do the work I need to do.

So, I'm going to come back here and grab the Pen tool, click on the border, and

I'm just going to make that one border, hit the Esc key.

Where's Idaho?

Down here.

We're going to just go here and I will curve that.

I'm going to click a little bit and drag it and there's the other border, and

I'm going to just draw the border between California and Nevada, and

now I have my borders.

So, now I can go back up to Object > Show All, and

I'll get my states back and there are my borders.

I dont like those black lines, I want them to be white, so

I'm going to select the border and I'm going to say Select > Same > Stroke Color,

and it'll select all of the lines.

So, now I can just put the line in the foreground and select white, and

now those borders look a little bit less harsh as those black borders.

I'm going to go ahead and write in the name of the Pacific Ocean and

I'm going to make that the blue color, so I'm going to again, take this type size,

drag it, hold the shift key, and drag it over here.

I'm going totype in Pacific Ocean.

Now what I'm going to do, is come down here and turn on my water.

I could make that white and

actually make it a little bit of a tint of the color of the water.

Just by selecting this and hitting Cmd+A, select all.

So, I click on the type and I hit Cmd or Ctrl+A and I go ahead and make that white.

So I say swatches, fill, white, and its completely white.

But if I just come up to add a little opacity to it, up here.

It will let some of that color of the background show through,

so it looks a little bit more elegant.

Put in a mileage scale.

I'm going to click on the layers palette, I'm going to hide he other states layer.

And I'm going to click on the labels layer, so that I draw on the labels layer.

And I'm going to come down here and I'm going to go to my mileage scale.

And I'm going to draw right over this mileage scale, because,

I'll draw right next to it so you can see what I'm doing.

I'm just going to get my line tool here, line segment tool,

click on that, hold the shift key down so it stays straight across...

And I'm going to draw that line right there.

I'm going to come up here and make it a little bit fatter, probably 2 point.

And I'm going to click on my swatches palette.

And I'm going to make sure the line is in the foreground and

I'm going to make it black.

And now I'm going to zoom in on this command plus plus.

Actually, I can just put the magnifying glass right over that and click and

drag and zoom right in there.

And now I'm going to put two other lines on this.

One right there, and I'm going to make it smaller,

I'm going to make it a half a point.

And I'm going to click and drag this right across to the other side and

there's my mileage scale, command minus minus.

I can go back and now I'm going to go ahead and select these three elements.

By clicking on them like this and I am going to hit Cmd+G which groups them and

I can move this off to the side now.

And now I am going to go back to my layers palette and turn it on and

turn on the land and there is my little mileage scale.

Go Cmd minus minus, zoom out a little bit.

Pick up this type here, and I can just write right in here, 50 miles.

And you can draw your mileage scale however you like.

It's fun to go looking around and see what other people do.

And now what I need to do, is label the states, so I'm going to click and

drag here.

And I'm going to say, put all caps and say, Washington.

And I think I'll make Oregon a little bit bolder type.

Click on that and come up here, and I'm going to say bold.

Maybe I'll even make it bigger.

You want to make sure you save your map before you get too far, I've come too far.

If this were to crash, I'd be very angry.

I'd be very upset if this crashed.

I'm going to hit Cmd+S and

I'm going to call this OREGON MAP and hit save, and okay.

And then I want to put some inner state symbols on

these roads and if I were drawing a road.

There are couple of ways to do this.

I want you to know that you can draw type along a road.

I'm going to show you how to do that.

I'm going to drag this black into that line there, I get a black line,

I'm going to get my pen tool.

If you get a cross here is for your pen tool it's because the shift key, the caps.

It's because the caps lock key is on.

I'm going to draw a shape here like this, there's a line.

Now if I hold the type tool down,

you'll see all these different things you can do with your type.

I'm going to do type on a path.

So, if you had roads and you wanted to draw along a road, you could do that.

Draw another line next to the road and click on it, and then just say road name.

And, these handles will allow you to push back and forth on them.

This one here will allow you to flip that name around and go back and

forth that way.

And again, you can flip it back over.

So that's what that does.

But what we're going to do is different.

We're going to put an interstate symbol there.

So I'm going to go to my Windows symbols library.

And if I click on the Symbols, I can go down to Open Symbols Library, and

there's a Maps Library right there.

And here all these really great things.

I'm going to go ahead and drag out this interstate symbol, and close this,

and to edit this interstate symbol, you need to double click on it.

And if you have repeated in a couple of places

it'll change both versions because it's a symbol.

Come in on this, double click on this, and it's saying you're about to edit a symbol.

It'll edit all versions of this symbol, and I'm going to say okay.

I don't really like the black lines, so I'm going to make them white.

To get out of this editing mode, I just have to double click off to the side.

Now, I'm back into this editing mode, and I'm going to go ahead and

grab this little type here Salem.

The reason it went behind this symbol is because it

was drawn before the symbol was placed there.

So, it is behind the symbol.

Whenever you draw something it's above, technically,

above the thing that you drew before it.

I'm going to go ahead and CTRL>click or right click and say arrangement.

Bring this to front and now it's in front and so,

I can go ahead and type in 84 here.

And I think that's a little small actually, so I'm going to go ahead and

make that bold.

And I'll take it maybe, well just for now, make it about eight point.

And, I think it also needs to be white, so go here and make that white.

And now that I've done that, I can come over here and

click and drag this holding the option key down, and just click a five.

And then I can center that into that space.

So, one last thing I have to do to clean up this map,

is to, I want to clip all of this stuff around the edges.

First I'm going to turn off the base map, which I no longer need.

But you can see things don't line up along the bottom.

This red lined road is sticking out a little bit.

It's a little messy, you can see that there's a black line.

I could take that black line off the watercolor.

But if I want to clip the edges and

make it perfectly square, I need to do what's called a clipping mask.

The problem with making a clipping mask,

is that if I put a clipping mask over this and clip everything.

It's going to obliterate all of the layers that I did.

It'll still look just like the map, but I will no longer have things on layers.

So what I like to do is,

to create a copy of the map that retains the layering off to the side, as a backup.

So, I'm going to go ahead and duplicate this map and

I'm going to open up all the layers.

And I'm going to make sure nothing is locked and

you can see I had a locked roads layer there.

You want to also make sure that this is up here,

it says there is nothing is locked here there's no lock with the check mark.

So I'm going to hit command plus plus, and I'm going to go ahead and

draw a selection box around everything.

And I know everything will go selected, because nothing's locked.

I'm going to hold the option key down and

I'm going to just drag a copy of this map off to the side.

And now, that's a backup map and all of this layers that you see here,

will be retained.

And now, I'm going to go ahead and create my clipping mask.

I need those layers open.

I need to be on the very top layer to do this.

As a matter of fact, I can create a new layer and I can call this clipping mask.

It doesn't really matter because it's going to obliterate all of this.

And then I'm going to grab a box-tool and draw a box

right over the top of this and it doesn't matter what color it is.

But, if I zoom in, you can see that this is a box that is

a little bit smaller than my Map.

And, if I make it a different color, you can see it a little bit better.

So, you can see its a little bit smaller than my map,

I have exaggerated a little bit.

Now,I am going to go ahead and select everything again,

and I am going to right click over the top of it.

I am going to say make clipping mask and it trims off all that stuff on the edges.

If you needed to reduce or enlarge your map, you can click on the map and

then click on this free transform tool.

And then hold the shift key down and you can shrink or enlarge that map,

however you like.

You may need to adjust your font sizes a little bit,

but that's about how you do that.

So there you have it everybody, a map of Oregon.

Take care.

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