A Guide to Drawing Maps
Drawing maps is easy! With a little creativity and a strategy, this will take you on an amazing journey towards your finished illustrated map. Personally, whenever I work on any artwork, I have ups and downs, but that’s healthy! That means you are analyzing your work, nitpicking the problems, and working through different stages of your artwork. Imagine if we didn’t do that; we would never improve our art skills. Shesh, let’s not settle!
Now, what is a custom map? Custom maps capture the spirit of a city, country, adventure, journey, freezing memories, and moments. When we think about illustrated maps, we envision colorful maps, fun illustrations, and quirky icons. As you continue into this blog, you will learn how to create your own map, what issues you will run into drawing maps, committing to your artwork, and acknowledging wins.
How to Draw Custom Maps
Some of the common places you can find illustrated maps are at restaurants, travel guides, amusement parks, movies, personal adventures and more. Now for the good part, how to start drawing your map with these 5 easy steps.
1. Pick your Location
When selecting a location for your map ask yourself what area do you want to focus on, will it be a large area or a smaller magnified area. It’s important to have an idea of what you think will be important to highlight the area as well as mesh well with your map.
If you are not ready then take some time to find inspiration through an icon, a stylized illustration, your favorite locations, or a place you would like to visit in the future.
2. Create a List
The planning and research is done, now it is time to make a list. To start your list, divide it into two portions, the first section will include all of the landmarks and significant city treasures that will make the map recognizable. It can be an important city, park, water body or it could be an important street or highway.
The second section will include all of the icons or areas you want to illustrate. For example if you are creating a map of your bikepacking adventure, you will list all the areas you stayed in, memorable moments, animal sightings, or everything you would like to include in your map to bring it to life. Ready to move on? Onto step three!
3. Add your Pinpoints
Now to analyze the points, sometimes a cluster of points makes it harder to add multiple illustrations in one area. Start drawing small circles where each icon will live, it will give you an idea of how much spacing you will need and now you can organize them.
Now, if your map contains icons too far from each other, take screen grabs of each area and overlap them. Here are two options for combining each section, time to get creative:
- Create an illusion and connect roads, streets, parks and freeways
- Create magnified areas from a more extensive map
Take a peek at the screenshot of my map area. As you let your eyes find the red pins, you will see they are pretty spread out, and others cluster together. The digital map below shows you how I shrinked my map. I used essential landmarks like parks, rivers, and freeways to make the map appear closer.
4. Start Drawing
After all the pinpoint problem solving it’s time to start drawing your map! For those who have trouble getting started, try not to get caught up trying to make it perfect. You will start finding things you love and things you hate as you draw.
If you’re drawing digitally, it can be more forgiving, but if you’re drawing traditionally, try to test a few smaller drawings to make sure you like the direction you are going in.
The big question, should I draw every street on my map? No! Don’t crowd your map with every single road, side street etc. Save time by only adding major roads, roads most used or roads that your interest points are on.
5. Pick your Colors
Your drawing is coming along, at this step your icons, your points, and major streets should be completed. It’s time to add color! If you haven’t figured out your color scheme, here are a few ways to figure that out.
Choose colors by moods, pictures, scenes, or find fun color swatches. I also like to choose colors that I think would work well and start to experiment afterward. If you need some resources for color swatches you can use Pinterest, Instagram, Coolers, Canva and a lot more. Check out these inspiration images I gathered for my project.
You're a Map Creator!
Congrats! You’re done, you finished drawing, creating your icons, and picked your colors. Now it’s time to take a step back and find things you like or don’t like, and be your own critic in the healthiest format. We want to grow and become better artists, not put ourselves down. Sometimes when I finish an art piece, I will create new layers so I can experiment on colors some more just in case.
Challenges with your Illustrated Map
Here is the adventurous part of your illustrated map: the issues you did not expect. I’ve added a few of the issues I’ve run into, that might help you in the future!
The first issue that I had to solve with my map was how I would fit all of these icons on one map on a canvas size of a 3:2 ratio.
I started by drawing the entire map and working through issues. I drew pieces of the map and combined them but that did not work because the area was so large. I tried drawing magnifying windows but did not like it for my own map, lastly I recreated an illusioned map. As I explored all three maps, I realized I did not like the first two and got to work to combine each section with a realistic illusion to shorten the map by highlighting major roads that connected the points that were far away from each other.
The second issue that occurred was having icons next door to each other. I tried using line indicators and spread the icons around the map, which I hated. My next attempt was drawing each icon and playing with placement and sizing. I ended up loving my second experiment, and for my map, it had a successful effect. Depending on what type of map you are creating, you have to try different methods to see what works best, so don’t forget to have fun and experiment.
My Illustrated Map Wins
I wanted to share my wins with my project. As a Latina artist born and raised in Los Angeles, I am proud to create illustrations representing our communities and highlighting their businesses to make sure we take space. I know I am not the most excellent writer or speaker, but any little thing I can do with my art and my presence is a win for my community. Take a moment to enjoy your illustrated map. You’d be surprised how much you might not be stoked about a finished piece but wait a month or so and see how much love you have for it.
Nike hired me to create an illustrated map for Latino Heritage Month, including three essential neighborhoods in Los Angeles; Downtown LA, Boyle Heights, and East LA. Their main focus was to highlight small businesses or icons that were Latino or Latina-owned. To name a few Birch and Bone, Sonora Town, Mariachi Plaza, Latinx with Plants, Kobe’s Mural, Sara’s Market, and El Mercadito De LA.
Creating Custom Maps is Easy
Drawing a custom map IS easy, you just need the five easy steps to get you started. You learned to start your illustrated map by selecting a location, creating a list, adding your pinpoints, starting your drawing and picking your colors. With that solid plan you can start creating fun themed maps! I hope this blog helped.
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