I don’t often write reviews but I’m thinking of doing it more often, that way at least there’s a break from CityEngine and ArcGIS talk!

Increasingly I am finding myself struggling to make maps, there are so many options and so many tools out there it’s difficult to know where to start.   I realised I needed the basics, I needed a reference book with workable examples and things like fonts and hex colour codes, then I saw this book…

Do you make maps? Do you use a GIS package and spend too much time creating symbology for your maps? If the answer is yes then this book is for you! It’s a great reference for making good looking and legible maps. Need a colour scheme that works? The author has included hex, rgb an cmyk codes with her large sample of coordinated palettes.

Need inspiration for choosing the right font? This book gives example maps and text in a variety of fonts (free and fee fonts). The last section is a good selection of inspirational maps under the heading ‘composition patterns’. Each mapping style has a good set of example maps as well as guidance text on usage and how to achieve these styles.

This is not like her first book “GIS Cartography” which was far more in-depth and quite a heavy read. Cartographers Toolkit is one you want to have on or near your desk whilst setting up mapping styles.

One last thing to note, this book does not rely on knowledge of a specific piece of software (ArcGIS, MapInfo etc..).

You can follow the author Gretchen on Twitter (http://twitter.com/PetersonGIS) or read her blog at http://www.gretchenpeterson.com

I have posted this review in part on Amazon UK as well.

You purchase the book here : Cartographer’s Toolkit

Summary: It’s a toolkit for people who make maps, didn’t you read the title?!
Why? Stuck for insipration? Need a code set of hexcodes for your symbology?
Rating: 4/5 whilst most of the guidance is universal it is a bit american centric (in terms of advice on styles etc..)