creating and naming maps in publisher

[MaxineD]

I'm hoping someone can hep. I have no background in design, but am working on a book for someone who wants just simple maps...  The 2nd pic is where I've got to, and I'm not happy. The 1st picture is the sort of thing I'd like to be able to achieve.

i've just placed an outline map, then added text boxes for place names and grouped - all very tedious and not at all satisfactory. 

Any guidance please?

[thomaso]

For which steps do you miss guidance? – I would use separate Layer layers for the various types (e.g. curves, objects, text) which may be easier to handle than Groups. If you mean with "grouped - all very tedious" the selection of single objects you also may try another (auto-)select option (V2 only). The preferred workflow also depends on your individual habits.

On the South America map, text overlaps with curves and reduces the readability of the text. If you must not change the text positions in your map then one way to improve the text could be a stroke added to the text. – Or do you mean the additional, illustrative elements (waves, textured fill, building, mountain, lake)? Or the varying font weights/traits in the upper map (normal, italics, CAPITALS,…)?

[MaxineD]

Thank you! I guess I mean all of the above. It's a small map, with 10font text - maybe I could bring the text box forard, but with so many, that was tricky - too many layers. 

I think what I really hoped for was a video tutorial, if anyone could point me in that direction. I'll look up how 'auto-select' might work. 

[Ldina]

@MaxineD if you’re new to this, there’s a fair amount to learn, and you’ll need some of the basics. Trent does some good tutorials on YouTube and here is one. He has a lot of tutorials, so look to see if he has one or two others that zero in on what you want.

also, search for ArtistWright on YouTube, another great learning resource for Designer. And on this forum, check out the official Affinity designer tutorials (browse > forums > tutorials). It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but a few good tutorials will be a great start and get your feet firmly planted.

 

[MaxineD]

Sorry - I hadn't specified I'm working in Affinity Publisher2, not designer

[Ldina]

Publisher has a Designer Persona (watered down version of Designer) which provides more tools and flexibility for content creation. There are tutorials on this forum for Publisher too. Publisher itself can do some of this type of thing, but its forte is page layout. Maybe do a YouTube search for “Affinity Publisher map making” or something like that.

[carl123]

8 minutes ago, Ldina said:

Publisher has a Designer Persona

Only if you have purchased Designer (or the complete suite of all 3 apps)

[Ldina]

3 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Only if you have purchased Designer (or the complete suite of all 3 apps)

I thought the “personas” were available even if you just owned Publisher. Same with pixel persona in Desgner. Not so? 

I know Edit in Designer or edit in Photo features require you to own the entire suite. 

[markw]

9 minutes ago, Ldina said:

I thought the “personas” were available even if you just owned Publisher. Same with pixel persona in Desgner. Not so?

In Publisher if you don’t have Designer or Photo installed when you click on their Persona Icons you just get the attached message window.
 

[Ldina]

Thanks…I own all three and assumed incorrectly. My mistake.

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, MaxineD said:

Thank you! I guess I mean all of the above. It's a small map, with 10font text - maybe I could bring the text box forard, but with so many, that was tricky - too many layers. 

I think what I really hoped for was a video tutorial, if anyone could point me in that direction. I'll look up how 'auto-select' might work. 

I doubt there is a video for "all of the above". Usually the tutorials demonstrate either an overview on basic features or a detailed look on special workflows, while special workflows require basic skills. So, for your map you may need both, means various tutorials.

Therefore, the "Selection" options alone can seem complex, especially to a new Affinity user. Since a map design may require many small, individual objects, the different selection methods may be more relevant than in "usual" APub projects such as flyers, magazines or books with their focus is on large text blocks + photos rather than on creating and handling a set of small illustrations.

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/select.html

If you work with APub only (not AD) you don't have access to AD's "Symbol" feature which allows to use one object as master and get any change on the master auto-applied to any other instance of this object across the entire document. For map design it would be helpful for each illustrated object that appears multiple times spread over the map (e.g. buildings, mountains, lake/waves etc). – In APub only it would be useful to surround the lack of "Symbols" by exported + placed as linked image resources (e.g. one image file for a building, one for … etc.). An alternative workflow would create multiple illustrations on one large page, export this page, place it (linked again) and use the various details of this page by clipping/cropping the placed page accordingly / as required. Both ways ensure that changes done to the exported image will appear on its placed instances, without a need to update those individually.

So I recommend to start with basic tutorials and either search for or ask in the forum for specific, single problems and solutions. Apart from Serif's video resources you'll find many more in youtube.

Also Serif's "Spotlight" articles might help:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=publisher+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Faffinityspotlight.com%2F&atb=v449-1&ia=web

[MEB]

9 hours ago, MaxineD said:

Thank you! I guess I mean all of the above. It's a small map, with 10font text - maybe I could bring the text box forard, but with so many, that was tricky - too many layers. 

I think what I really hoped for was a video tutorial, if anyone could point me in that direction. I'll look up how 'auto-select' might work. 

Hi @MaxineD,
It will be hard to find a tutorial that deals specifically with the issues your are having with this project, but if you approach one issue at a time you can get this done and learn a lot in the process. First thing to do would be organize your layers. Ideally you should have the text above everything else in its own layer, so create a new Layer named "Labels" or something else you find appropriate on the top of the Layer stack. Then go to menu Select > Select Object > Art Text (or Frame Text, depending which tool you used for the city labels: Artistic or Frame Text Tool). This will select all text objects/layers. In the Layers panel - drag them all to the Labels layer you just created in the Layers panel.

You can place all the map lines in another Layer below. 

To deal with the texture fill and the larger stroke that outlines the map, it would be convenient to have a shape that defines the contour of the whole map. Depending how the map lines were created (they are separated lines or shapes?) you may have to join the lines or perform add boolean operations in case they are shapes to create the shape of the whole map. With the shape of the map complete you can clip a texture fill inside and increase its stroke width compared to the internal lines of the map to highlight it.

The "waves" if you want to re-create them can be a single symbol that's repeated along the map at different scales.

[Twolane]

This product isn't free, but I bought it and used it with some success a while ago. It's presently on sale. I don't know if it's a solution for you or not, since it's for Affinity Designer. However, I will add that some of the icons in your original post appear to resemble those in the package - in particular the church and the mountain range.

https://artifexforge.com/product/the-vintage-nautical-map-maker-affinity/

[thomaso]

In addition to previous hints, also a search for "cartography" may lead you to specific tutorials. And, even if they use other apps than your APub, you may be able to reproduce many of the workflows in APub, too, or may achieve their goal in APub with a workaround. However, it helps to be aware about the available tools + features of your specific app and its version number.

[MaxineD]

Great ideas thanks - all much appreciated. I have some learning to do.