Park Tiles design refresh, September 2023

Published on: Thu Sep 28 2023

by Jake Coolidge, Web Cartographer

This month we completed a few improvements to our ancillary versions of Park Tiles: Aerial (aka Imagery), Light, and Slate. Our updates to our primary and most-viewed basemap, Park Tiles Standard, occur with greater frequency, but the other styles in the suite were due for a refresh. These styles now have more data layers represented as well as improved cartographic styling to present those layers harmoniously. I’ll briefly summarize these improvements below.

Data layers

The refresh resulted in the addition of several labeling layers, particularly to Park Tiles Light and Slate. A partial list of labels added includes US Forest Service units, state parks, and water and land feature labels. Light and Slate are designed to be less complex and feature-rich than Park Tiles Standard, but the larger set of labels will augment their usability.

example labels in Park Tiles Slate

We also expanded display of road centerlines in Park Tiles Aerial. This will boost the visibility of these features against the great variety of backgrounds aerial imagery presents.

example road centerlines in Park Tiles Aerial

Under the hood: layer ordering and layer naming conventions

Park Tiles styles have been developed in piecemeal fashion over several years. As we look towards near-future enhancements with NPMap5, we’re standardizing the layer order and layer names across styles. For example, this will allow us to take a Park Tiles style, like Slate, and dynamically change its style properties on the fly, and the same logic could be applied to Park Tiles Light.

Highway shields

Following the precedent we set with Park Tiles Standard, we’ve boosted the the contrast of shields with the map background without making the shields too visually prominent. With Park Tiles Light and Slate, in particular, we’ve moved away from using strokes in shield artwork to differentiate the shield from its background. This results in a clean, simplified look appropriate for the overall design objectives for those styles.

Park Tiles Standard

Park Tiles Aerial

Park Tiles Light

Park Tiles Slate

We’re continuously making adjustments to enhance the cartographic design of the Park Tiles suite. We’ll continue to capture those improvements in this blog in the months ahead. Thanks for reading!