Cartographic Design

Most maps aim to serve two purposes: to serve a practical purpose and to look aesthetically pleasing. This makes cartography similar to other forms of design (e.g., architecture, graphic design, interior design), requiring the cartographer to be skilled in artistic creativity, scientific reasoning, and technologies such as geographic information systems and web development.

Design, including the design of maps, is a type of craft that balances the need for aesthetic appeal and practical usefulness in a product (often encapsulated as "form and function"). Over the multi-millennial history of maps, a variety of techniques and technologies have been used to visually represent the phenomena found in the world. Since the emergence of cartography as an academic discipline, these techniques have been systematized and studied (both scientifically and critically). New design techniques have continued to be developed, especially as afforded by newly available technologies such as GIS and the Internet. The professional crafting of quality maps requires skill in a number of areas, including:

• Design thinking, including the planning of map solutions to given needs
• Artistic creativity
• Understanding the perceptual and psychological processes employed by map readers
• The general techniques used in most maps, such as symbology, composition, color, projections, generalization, and labeling.
• Techniques used for specific types of maps, especially the representation of terrain and the several kinds of thematic maps (choropleth, proportional symbol, flow, dot distribution, etc.) 
• Technology used to collect geographic data and apply design techniques to produce and distribute maps, such as printing, geographic information systems, graphics software, and web development.

Typically, cartographers gain these skills through a combination of formal education, self-training resources, critique and imitation of existing high-quality maps, and professional experience.

Cartographic design has a conceptual or theoretical aspect in understanding how maps work, but the primary value of knowledge in this concept is its application to crafting high-quality maps. Some may equate Cartography and Cartographic design as a single concept, but others distinguish the former as the general study of maps (i.e., a scholarly endeavor) and the latter as the practical application of the former (i.e., a professional endeavor).