I will be mapping the lighthouses of Florida. I chose this subject because next year for
our anniversary, my husband and I are taking a trip to Florida and we enjoy
touring lighthouses. We have several
books that are not current and that do not have maps. I also see a need for this map because even
though I have found several sites on-line regarding lighthouses with maps, I
have yet to find one map that encompasses the entire state, with all
lighthouses listed. The audience for
this map will primarily be my family, but I intend to model it after
tourist-style maps.
The scope of my map will be the coastal areas, with just the
base map of Florida needed. The data
that I have found so far is from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Lighthouse
Association, all current this year. I
will attempt to include all lighthouses and reef and shoal lights, indicating
whether the lights are still active, and most importantly, if they are open to
the public. Some grounds are open to the
public, but the lights themselves cannot be toured, so I will specify that open
to the public is meaning that you can actually climb the tower to the lens
room. There are 35 lighthouses in Florida
at this time, with 29 remaining active and 11 offering tours.
After uploading the basemap, I will spend a lot of time on
getting the colors and fonts to match the old-time feel of the map. I love the color scheme from the map on the
attached website, but will incorporate some of my own ideas… I will find a mimetic icon and decide how to
show the data of active/decommissioned and open/closed to the public. I’m not sure yet on the best way to do this…
I expect my main challenge will be placing all of the information
on the map in a fresh, aesthetically pleasing way. The link at the bottom is to a map from
www.pensacolalighthouse.org . I feel it
is the “best looking” map that I have found, but it doesn’t include all of the
information that I need. I like the “old”
feel to it, which brings to mind the era in which lighthouses played such an
important part. I would like to improve
this map, with maybe this color scheme.
The other 4 maps included again do not show all of the lighthouses and
are lacking in aesthetic appeal to me.
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