Integrating GIS Capabilities with Mapmaking in Adobe Illustrator

Bridging Design and Geography in Modern Cartography

Cartography today sits at the intersection of design, data, and technology. Creating effective maps requires both aesthetic control and geographic intelligence—yet historically, these capabilities lived in separate software worlds. GIS platforms excel at managing spatial relationships and data accuracy but often limit visual flexibility. Graphic design tools, on the other hand, offer extensive control over color, typography, and layout while treating geographic features as static shapes with no inherent spatial awareness.

As landscapes, infrastructure, and boundaries constantly evolve, cartographers are required to update maps frequently, across multiple scales and styles. This reality has long demanded a workflow that unites the analytical rigor of GIS with the creative power of professional design software.

For more than three decades, Adobe Illustrator has been the industry standard for vector-based graphic design. For over 20 years, Avenza’s MAPublisher has extended Illustrator by embedding GIS functionality directly into the design environment—effectively dissolving the divide between cartography and graphic design.

From “Map Blind” to “Map Aware”

Historically, many cartographers relied on tools such as FreeHand, CorelDRAW, Canvas, or Illustrator itself, often importing GIS data from other platforms. While workable, this approach stripped geographic data of its spatial intelligence once inside Illustrator. Shapes could be edited visually, but they no longer “knew” where they were on Earth or how they related to other features.

This limitation was familiar to David Lambert, Director of Cartographic Production for National Geographic’s commercial retail maps. For years, his team designed maps in GIS software, exported them to Illustrator, and then finalized the design. Once imported, however, the maps lost their geospatial properties and became what Lambert describes as “map illiterate.”

After adopting MAPublisher, that changed. GIS data could now remain spatially aware throughout the design process, allowing features to be reprojected, updated, and reused across products without repeated exports or manual corrections.

Why Geographic Awareness Matters

Lambert highlights several practical advantages of working with geospatially intelligent design files:

• Consistent feature reuse across scales
• Natural features like the Great Salt Lake change over time. With MAPublisher, a single authoritative boundary can be reused across local, national, and global maps, simply by reprojecting it dynamically—without redrawing or resizing.
• Efficient updates across overlapping map series

National Geographic produces hundreds of outdoor recreation maps that overlap at varying scales. When trail data changes, updated GIS files can be transformed automatically across all relevant map products.

Single-point updates for dynamic boundaries

Politically sensitive borders, such as between India and Pakistan, can be updated once and propagated across multiple map products, ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Starting Every Map on Solid Ground

For National Geographic, every new map now begins directly in MAPublisher. Establishing a consistent projection from the outset ensures accuracy throughout production. GIS data from federal, state, and local agencies—such as trail networks or hydrological datasets—can be imported, categorized, and styled efficiently.

MAPublisher allows designers to interact with geographic features directly inside Illustrator. Clicking on a road, for example, reveals its attributes—name, surface type, clearance—without leaving the design environment. This seamless interaction eliminates the need to switch between software platforms and reduces production time.

Managing Imperfect and Conflicting Data

At the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center, Senior Cartographer Tom Patterson oversees the creation of the iconic park brochures distributed nationwide. His team adopted MAPublisher in the mid-1990s as digital cartography replaced manual workflows.

Much of their work involves compiling public-domain data from multiple sources—a process that often reveals inconsistencies. Roads don’t align, attributes conflict, and datasets vary in quality. Reconciling these discrepancies is one of the most time-consuming aspects of map production.

MAPublisher’s attribute-based selection and editing tools make this task far more manageable. By filtering and correcting features directly within Illustrator, Patterson’s team can resolve conflicts efficiently while maintaining geographic integrity.

Keeping Maps Current—and Mobile

Because national parks evolve, NPS maps are updated regularly. Working with georeferenced Illustrator documents allows new GIS data—such as a newly constructed trail—to be imported directly into existing layouts and placed accurately.

Shaded relief is another key element of park maps. Using Avenza’s Geographic Imager in Adobe Photoshop, terrain shading is generated as a geographically aware raster file. When imported into Illustrator, MAPublisher automatically aligns the relief with vector map elements.

Beyond print, MAPublisher enables the creation of geospatial PDFs, which are distributed through the Avenza Maps app. These maps display the user’s real-time location on mobile devices—even without cellular connectivity. Field teams use these PDFs to annotate, record tracks, and drop location pins during site visits, then sync that data back into the production workflow.

Expanding into Web and Interactive Mapping

The NPS is also modernizing its maps for online use. MAPublisher supports exporting Illustrator documents as web map tiles, allowing compatibility with major platforms like Google Maps, Bing Maps, and Apple Maps. This has been especially valuable as the agency transitions from UTM to Web Mercator coordinates.

Tools such as MAPublisher’s Map Web Author further extend capabilities by enabling rapid creation of interactive HTML5 maps. These maps support layered data exploration and historical comparisons, such as viewing modern photographs alongside Civil War–era imagery.

Illustrator as a Professional Technical Platform

MAPublisher is not the only plugin extending Illustrator’s technical reach. Tools like CADtools and VectorScribe demonstrate that Illustrator has become a preferred environment not just for designers, but for CAD, GIS, and mapping professionals alike.

These plugins add precision drawing, measurement, vector optimization, and complex path editing—reinforcing Illustrator’s role as a versatile platform for spatial and technical workflows.

Conclusion: A Workflow Built for the Future

Geospatial data is expanding rapidly, driven by drones, IoT devices, satellites, and everyday consumer technology. At the same time, users expect maps to be visually refined, data-rich, and instantly accessible across devices.

By embedding GIS intelligence directly into Adobe Illustrator, MAPublisher enables cartographers to meet these demands without sacrificing design quality or spatial accuracy. The growing number of GIS vendors attempting to integrate with Illustrator only underscores what cartographers already know: Illustrator is the preferred canvas for map creation.

With MAPublisher at the center of this workflow, the fusion of GIS and graphic design is no longer experimental—it is the new standard.