Cynthia Brewer

When choosing map colors, you should not be overly concerned about which colors your audience likes...focus your attention on presenting your data clearly.

Cynthia A. Brewer (born 1960) is an American cartographer, author, and professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University. Brewer's specialism relates to visibility and color theory in cartography, and, in 2023, she was awarded the International Cartographic Society's highest honor, the Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal, for her distinguished contribution to the field. She is the creator of the online color-palette tool ColorBrewer.

Quotes

• Cartographic expertise allows you to communicate geographic information clearly with maps. Amateur-looking maps can undermine your audience's ability to understand important information and weaken the presentation of a professional data investigation.
  • From the 2nd edition of Brewer's book Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users

• When choosing map colors, you should not be overly concerned about which colors your audience likes. Everyone has an opinion about color aesthetics, and members of your audience undoubtedly have differing opinions based on their own preferences. There has been a substantial amount of loosely structured research on color preferences. Regardless of context, it seems that most people like blue and do not like yellow, but that is an overly simplistic guideline for multicolor contexts. People also like maps with many colors, so focus your attention on presenting your data clearly and not worry about whether you have picked everyone's favorite colors.
  • From the 2nd edition of Brewer's book Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users

External links

• Personal website