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Guiding principles for Mapbox styles

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Nicki Dlugash edited this page Feb 25, 2016 · 3 revisions

Style name

Description of style. What is its purpose and defining characteristics?

Styling guidelines

Concrete styling recommendations. For example:

  • Which features to include/not include
  • Sprite usage
  • Font usage and typography
  • Color scheme

Basic

Simple and flexible starting template.

TODO @nickidlugash

Bright

Template for complex custom basemaps.

Bright demonstrates how to use Mapbox Streets data to make a complex style with a simple stylesheet. The styling is minimal, relegating style decisions where possible to those inherent in the data. At the same time, Bright includes examples of most of the basic styling techniques.

Styling guidelines

  • For roads, only use the class field to filter, not the type field. The class field represents our best attempt to include all relevant OSM types within a simplified system.

  • For highway shields, use a a generic shield, as our current options for customization are too complex for this style.

  • For POIs and transport labels, use Maki-2 for the icons and the maki field in the icon-image values. Once we open source a rail network icon set, we may want to switch the rail_station_label to use these and the network value.

  • Minimally use min-zoom and max-zoom properties – let the visibility of most features be determined by the automatic filtering.

  • Don't use Mapbox Terrain (Bright is our only complex style that only uses Mapbox Streets data).

Streets

TODO @nickidlugash

Light/Dark

Subtle light/dark backdrop for data visualizations.

TODO @xrwang / @andreasviglakis?

Satellite Streets

Global satellite and aerial imagery with unobtrusive labels.

TODO

Emerald

A versatile style, with emphasis on road networks and public transit.

TODO @peterliu

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