Font Size & Style

Font is one of the most influential elements in cartographic design. It shapes how readers perceive hierarchy, navigate the map, and interpret geographic information. This module provides an interactive environment, where you can experiment with font families, sizes, weights, spacing, case, and halo effects, and instantly see the results on a real cartographic base map.

The main font models

In this text-only area, you can change font size, spacing, casing, and halo properties. It allows you to visually understand each typographic parameter without depending on the map.

  • Font family – Choose from several common typefaces used in cartography: Inter, Noto Sans, Noto Serif, Roboto. This helps you understand different visual personalities of fonts.
  • Font size – Adjusts the basic legibility of labels. Large sizes increase visual dominance; small sizes emphasize subtlety.
  • Font weight – Controls hierarchy. Heavier weights draw attention; lighter weights behave more passively.
  • Letter spacing – slight increase helps ALL-CAPS labels; negative values squeeze more text.
  • Case – UPPERCASE vs. Capitalize vs. lowercase changes the perceived shape of labels.
  • Halo – Thin halos enhance clarity. Thick halos may produce visual halation

    • Sample labels

    Try changing the font family and other properties, then imagine how these labels would look on a busy map background.

    • Germany
    • Switzerland
    • Austria
    • Czech Republic
    • France

    Hands-on

    Note: For the map, available font families are taken directly from the MapTiler style (e.g. “Noto Sans Regular” and “Noto Sans Bold”). The Explanation section demonstrates additional conceptual font families using CSS only.

    References