Creating Campus Map Illustration

Work-in-progress

A well-designed map illustration is one of the essential parts of an interesting interactive campus map.  First appearances have an enormous impact on how long someone will spend exploring your map illustration, and what is the most incredible thing they will see is the map illustration. Rabinky Art, LLC is a professional illustration company specializing in map illustrations and has many years of experience creating campus maps for different schools.

Get inspired: Sketch

Let’s start building a story! With a rough sketch, I create a general layout. First, we need to choose a viewpoint. It is essential to pick the correct angle and elevation of the point we are looking at the campus. This approach will determine the perspective and layout of the map illustration. The initial sketch usually includes the major roads, geographical features, and very rough outline of the building.

Then I send the rough sketch for my clients’ review and approval. My contracts typically include two or three rounds of clients’ revisions.

When the pencil sketch revisions are done and approved by the client, it’s time to move to the next step of creating a campus map illustration.

Build a story: line drawing

At this stage of creating a campus map illustration, I’m adding all buildings, roads, venues, and fields in a fine line. While finalizing the illustration drawing, I’m redrawing the whole map with a fine black line, which works great as an outline for the map illustration objects when colored.

When the pencil drawing revisions are done and approved by the client, it’s time to move to the next step of creating a colorful campus map illustration.

A fun and colorful way to present your campus – adding color

The final step in the creating campus map illustration process is colorization. I see any of my illustrations as fine art and paint it digital watercolor to reach the special effects of lovely watercolor painting. Then again, I provide the final artwork to my client for final approval.

The finished work I send to my clients in high-resolution digital format.