I wanted to practice my cartography with a themed map for this October. Obviously, this meant it’d have something to do with pumpkins.

The USDA has excellent data on crop harvests (although pumpkins were listed under vegetables instead of fruits. But that is neither here nor there).

Tools:

• Esri ArcGIS Pro

Data:

• USDA Crop Harvest Data
• Adobe Illustrator Pumpkin Tutorial

My main goal with this map was to come up with a creative way to transform the legend from the typical block-based key in most maps. Using the above listed pumpkin tutorial as the foundation, I played around in Adobe Illustrator for a fun, new way of communicating the map’s symbology. I think it turned out pretty slick:

Note that the counties with the most acres harvested are labeled... Who knew Illinois was our pumpkin capital?