Making a border for an old map

[GarryP]

I’ve listed, below the images, the steps of a technique, using Designer only, which you can use to create a border as you might see on old treasure maps etc.

It’s a bit long-winded but not difficult to do, shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete, and it should work in both V1 and V2.

At each stage, make sure that:

• Stroke Colour is Black;
• Fill is None;
• Scale With Object is OFF.

For the base border:

1. Draw a rectangle, you can make it any size you want, and keep it selected;
2. Open the Swatches Panel or Colour Panel;
3. Set the Fill to None;
4. Open The Stroke Panel;
5. Set: Stroke Width to 16px; Join to Mitre; Align to Centre;
6. Open the Appearance Panel;
7. Add a New Stroke and make sure it’s above the previous stroke added;
8. Set: Stroke Width to 12px; Cap to Butt; Join to Mitre; Align to Centre; Style to Dash; Dash Pattern to 5,5,0,0,0,0; Blend Mode to Erase; Also: Make sure that the "Balanced" button is ON or the effect won't be as nice;
9. Add a New Stroke and make sure it’s at the bottom of the ‘stroke stack’ (but above the fill);
10. Set: Stroke Width to 16px; Join to Mitre; Align to Inside; Style to Solid; Blend Mode to Normal;
11. Add a New Stroke and make sure it’s above the previous stroke added;
12. Set: Stroke Width to 14px; Join to Mitre; Align to Inside; Style to Solid; Blend Mode to Erase;
13. Add a New Stroke and make sure it’s at the bottom of the ‘stroke stack’ (but above the fill);
14. Set: Stroke Width to 20px; Join to Mitre; Align to Outside; Style to Solid; Blend Mode to Normal;
15. Add a New Stroke and make sure it’s above the previous stroke added;
16. Set: Stroke Width to 19px; Join to Mitre; Align to Outside; Style to Solid; Blend Mode to Erase.

For the optional ‘distressed’ effect:

1. Duplicate the rectangle and select the duplicate layer;
2. Use the “Revert Defaults” button on the Toolbar;
3. Open the Swatches Panel or Colour Panel;
4. Set the Fill to None;
5. Make sure the new (duplicated) rectangle is above the other rectangle in the layer stack and still selected;
6. Open The Stroke Panel;
7. Set: Style to Textured Line Style;
8. Open the Brushes Panel;
9. Select the “Dry Media” category, scroll down and select the “Light Charcoal (for closed curves)” brush;
10. Open The Stroke Panel;
11. Set: Stroke Width to 90px;
12. In the Layers Panel, set the Blend Mode of the duplicated Rectangle layer to Erase and set the Opacity to 60%;
13. Group both rectangles.

You can adjust the relative sizes of the strokes, brush pattern, etc. as necessary for different borders.

You can also resize the border as you want while still keeping the same general design – if you have added the ‘distressed’ effect then make sure you move/resize the group as a whole.

If you don't have the "Dry Media" category of brushes then you will need to choose a different brush from your collection.

Important: Because you are using the Erase Blend Mode at various stages, the result will always* be rasterised upon export to any file format.

* Unless you set “Rasterise: Nothing” as an export option whereupon the border will not be exported at all.

[MikeTO]

Great tips!

These borders are neatlines - I love them.

[GarryP]

Thanks MikeTO.

I saw an example somewhere and thought: “I wonder if that’s possible to do easily in the Affinity suite?”
And it was.

[TrentL]

Very nice...simple and seems easy change the size, too. Thanks for sharing!

[GarryP]

You're welcome.

[StudioJason]

Very nice. 
Just remember for those using… the Map Borderlines (boxed areas) also certain dimensions… as a border type of overall visual scaling of distances as well.
Meaning, each black and white box individually represent an increment of size/distance (I.e. inches/meters, miles/kilometers, etc). 
Unless you’re just wanting the overall effect.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, StudioJason said:

... the Map Borderlines (boxed areas) also certain dimensions… as a border type of overall visual scaling of distances as well.
Meaning, each black and white box individually represent an increment of size/distance (I.e. inches/meters, miles/kilometers, etc)

That's right, usually it goes that dependent way for maps. - Further such borderlines in maps are often used for pirate maps (& game maps) ...

• Sample map 1
• Sample map 2
• Sample map 3
• ... etc.

[GarryP]

14 hours ago, StudioJason said:

Meaning, each black and white box individually represent an increment of size/distance (I.e. inches/meters, miles/kilometers, etc).

That’s a very good point but, in this case, it was just about creating the effect rather than giving an accurate idea of scale.

Maybe someone can come up with a way to incorporate some kind of (automatic?) scaling into the technique, and share it here for others to use.

[v_kyr]

13 hours ago, GarryP said:

... come up with a way to incorporate some kind of (automatic?) scaling into the technique ...

There are already some Py scripting libs for topo maps etc. which do such borderline framings etc. - One PyGMT based example can be inspected & followed here ...

• https://www.earthinversion.com/utilities/pygmt-high-resolution-topographic-map-in-python/#plot-data-on-the-topographic-map
• https://towardsdatascience.com/easily-plot-earthquakes-data-on-top-of-the-topographic-map-in-a-few-steps-c165673035b4
• ... etc.