Text on maps

First, the font (or typeface) can be altered e.g. choosing Times New Roman vs Arial vs Verdana. This can affect the general look and feel of your map so it’s worth trying some different ones to see what looks best. You might want to use this to your advantage, for example if you were trying to create an old feeling map. Otherwise, popular fonts are a good place to start – they are popular for a reason. Also think about your display medium, as fonts such as Arial, Geneva and Verdana (sans serif) are more legible on screens. It is however best practice to limit the number of different fonts used to just a few and then vary the size, colour or character spacing to alter the appearance of text rather than using lots of different fonts. Generally, overly ornate fonts should be avoided as they can be difficult to read.

One of the key choices is whether to use a serif or sans serif font (type style). A serif font has decorative strokes at the end of each stem of a letter whilst Sans serif fonts do not have these. Both type styles can be used on a single map and are a common way of differentiating between different types of feature. For example, serif fonts are often used for natural features such as lakes, rivers and mountain ranges as the uneven form of the type mimics the uneven nature of natural features whilst sans serif fonts, which are more uniform, are used for man-made features such as place names. This is the case on the OS 25k and 50k series mapping.

The characteristics of type can also be varied between upright vs italics, regular vs semi-bold vs bold and lowercase vs CAPITALS.

Varying the type characteristics (keeping the font type the same) can allow differentiation between feature classes such as a man-made vs natural feature or a place name vs a station name. Varying the type characteristics is more commonly used to indicate the relative importance or size of features, creating a visual hierarchy.

Try not to use too much bold text on a map as it can start to overshadow other map elements and make the map appear quite ‘heavy’, or too much italic text as it can become difficult to read.

The size of text is a very popular way to show the relative importance of features such as county, region, country. Visually, without changing other characteristics of type, users can visually perceive a hierarchy in the names. Maps typically use type sizes between 6pt and 12pt and most people can read 6pt without a problem so there is no need to use lots of large text which takes up lots of space and can be visually overpowering.

Varying the colour of your text is a great way to differentiate feature types e.g. water features, tourist attractions, settlements, national parks and natural features. Colour can also be used to ensure that the text is clearly linked to the feature it represents due to colour associations. For example, blue is associated with water and therefore the label is likely to be linked naturally by the user to the water feature it sits alongside.

Changing the lightness (value) of the text can also be used to create a hierarchy, much like changing the type size or characteristics. Changing the lightness of type can also be used to make the text recede into the background.

The spacing of characters can be cleverly varied to show the extent of a feature where perhaps increasing the type size is not an option. Often it is used for features such as mountain ranges, water extents or countries. Condensed text is occasionally used where space is tight, but care should be taken that the text is still legible. More examples are included in the text placement section below.