Colour and Typography in Maps Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: the colour surrounding it is altered

A patch looks lighter against a dark ground and darker against a light one, and its hue shifts away from that of its surround. The effect is a property of vision rather than of the ink, and it is why a colour should be judged in the setting it will occupy rather than on its own.

Answer: D

Correct answer: equal numeric steps look equally different

In a perceptually uniform space the distance between two colours corresponds to how different they look, so a sequence of equal numeric steps produces an evenly graded series. That is exactly what a sequential scheme needs, and it is why such spaces are used to design them rather than RGB or CMYK.

Answer: A

Correct answer: were tested for legibility and reproduction

The ColorBrewer schemes were assessed for how well they work on screen and in print, in photocopy, on a projector and for readers with colour vision deficiencies. That testing is what they offer - a scheme known to survive the conditions a map actually meets, rather than one that merely looks well on the designer’s monitor.

Answer: B

The first two are correct. The third is wrong: a strongly saturated ink across a wide area tires the eye and overwhelms the symbols drawn on it, so backgrounds are normally muted and the saturation reserved for the theme.

Answer: C

Correct answer: False

Registration error is a misalignment of the plates, so the inks do not fall exactly on top of one another and colours fringe at their edges. The shade of each ink is correct; what has failed is their positioning, which is why the fault appears as coloured edges rather than as a wrong colour.

Answer: D

Correct answer: a darker colour than either alone

Each ink subtracts part of the spectrum, so laying one over another removes more and reflects less. Cyan over yellow gives green, cyan over magenta gives blue, and all three together approach black - which is why the fourth ink exists, since three-colour black is muddy and expensive.

Answer: A

It is measured on a letter such as x, and it governs how large a face looks at a given point size. Two faces set at the same nominal size can therefore differ noticeably in apparent size, which matters whenever a map specifies a minimum legible lettering.

Answer: B

Correct answer: False

Point size measures the body the type was cast on, not the letters themselves, and typefaces differ greatly in x-height - the height of the lower-case letters within that body. A face with a large x-height looks considerably bigger at the same point size, which is why type is specified by appearance rather than by number alone.

Answer: C

Nine divided by 72 gives one eighth of an inch, or about 3.2 millimetres. Knowing the conversion matters when a specification is written in millimetres but the drawing software works in points, which is the usual arrangement.

Answer: D

Dividing 1.5 by 0.35 gives about 4.3, so 5 point is the smallest whole size that clears the requirement. Rounding down to 4 would fall below the stated minimum and fail the specification, so rounding must always go upward for a floor of this kind.