Investigating international approaches to symbol design and evaluation

To what extent do national differences emerge when designing and evaluating original cartographic symbols? This paper describes a simple experiment to investigate different approaches to cartographic design. Over 100 participants, university students enrolled on cartographic modules in three European countries (Finland, Malta, and the UK), were each asked to draw a series of nine point symbols for representing a pre-determined set of features (Theatre, Police Station, Fire Station, Bus Station, Railway Station, Tourist Information Centre, University, Museum, and Cathedral) on a tourist map of a city at 1:20,000. The set of nine symbols had to be drawn in no particular order, without any labels, and within 30 minutes. Participants were then asked to evaluate each other's symbol designs, first by attempting to identify each feature from its symbol, and then by scoring each design out of ten. The findings reveal similarity and difference in how the three cohorts designed and evaluated the symbols designs and how national variations emerge.