ILLUSTRATED VECTOR MAP

deepikagupta20
Dec 21, 2020
4 min read

Updated: Mar 23, 2021

PRE-WORK:

We were asked to create a hand drawn map of our locality or any area. I chose to draw the locality around my home as this place has a lot of memories attached to it and if I am gonna start something, why shouldn't it be from my home?

Below is my hand drawn map of my locality:

STAGE 1:

This was my initial line drawing of the map but it lacked precision and the line quality was also not good.

So, I traced it again to achieve a better line quality.

This was my final line drawing of the map which is much more detailed and accurate than the previous one.

KEYWORDS FOR THE MOOD/VIBE OF THE MAP:

Nostalgic
Reminiscent
Recollection of memories
Snappy feeling

COLOR SCHEME:

The reason for choosing this color scheme was that I always associated nostalgia with pale or dull shades of the pastel colors. To achieve this color scheme I even took some references from google and then selected the ones that suited my intended mood of the map.

Below are the images from where I chose the colors for my map.

CREATING ICONS:

First, I decided to create black and white icons.

STAGE 2: COLOR & COMPOSE

The color of the icons became very dull so I decided to try other options.

ADDING COLORS TO THE MAP:

I started arranging the icons and simultaneously changing their color according to the background so that they don’t look dull like before.

I even gave a grainy texture to the roads.

Also the house icon with a heart represents my home.

Then I decided to create texture for certain areas such as park .

Then I again changed the color combination and also added the grainy texture to the whole map as it had a nostalgic and reminiscent vibe.

There are certain plots near my house which are empty and thus filled with grass and bushes so I tried giving that effect by roughening the ellipse shapes.

At this point, I was happy with the map and didn’t want to add anything else as it would’ve over-crowded it.

According to me, my map looked simple but very lively. It somehow acquired a monochromatic theme which was very pleasing reminding me of the beautiful memories that I have spent here.

For the final outcome I had to think of a title for my map and I came up with ‘GULABI AASHIYANA’ as it goes with the color scheme. Besides, I wanted to remember it as an abode of happiness in the Pink City.

Aashiyana means an abode/ home and this little area in the map is my ‘Khushiyo ka Aashiyana filled with Gulabi Yaadein’

STAGE 3: ABSTRACTION

For the abstraction part I decided to go with blue color scheme as I had already worked with pastel colors in stage-2 and wanted to do something different

Used this image as a reference for color.

I even tried interchanging the color of the roads and the background to see which one suits the best and I decided to go with the 2nd layout (right).

I did not want to make perfect shapes for my map so I decided to go with lines in order to show the movement of the eye.

I used the blend tool to make them but even they did not fulfil the purpose.

I wanted my lines to be more irregular and kind of wavy, so I started looking for topographic contour lines on the Internet.

This was the one that I liked the most as it was very harmonious. I downloaded it from vecteezy

But since my color scheme was blue so I changed its color.

But the roads seemed a little out of frame so I decided to change its color like the background color. Due to this now there created a little negative space where the roads were.

I, then started filling the lines with shades of blue in order to make it look more harmonious.

But is still looked a little off-beat, as if the roads were just pasted over the lines.

So I re-considered my color scheme and started looking for other color schemes on the Internet

This time, the colors that I chose were completely opposite to my previous one as they were warm and the latter were cool colors.

This time I placed the lines using a clipping mask so as to break the continuity between them and so that the roads don't get left out.

But I was still not satisfied. I even decided to make those contour lines by myself so that I could restrict them into one area and it could define one area in particular.

I used the warp tool to distort this but even this did not work.

I moved to my previous color scheme and started experimenting on that.

I changed the color of the roads in order to balance out the composition but none of them worked.

(Click on the arrow to see the explorations)

After consulting my friends and getting review, I decided to try out different patterns.

I really liked this pattern but sadly I somehow wasn't able to change its color.

Another pattern that I really like was this one. At first thought of using this color scheme only in my map but then I thought I should first experiment with the blue color scheme

This pattern was downloaded from freepik

Earlier, I had to change the color of each unit manually which was very time consuming. So after a little google search I came across this technique in which it automatically selects all the units of the same color and change their color at just one click.

This trick saved so much of my time. Had I known this earlier, my map would've been completed by now.

Tried creating emphasis but did not work.

Made a lot of copies to make clipping masks.

I liked the arrangement so I decided to move forward with, mixing it with the topographical lines.

Now, I was satisfied with my composition but the color scheme seemed too much blue so I decided to change it by using the original color scheme of the circle patterns.