the layout. If a separation is still desired, a compromise is to use a shortened line above and below the legend (see Figure 3.7).
Under certain circumstances, you might use the same background color for your legend that you use in the map element to ensure that the colors will look the same in the legend as they do on the map. For example, let’s say you have a map with some buoy locations shown in yellow on top of blue water. For the map’s legend, though, you’ve chosen a light yellow, almost tan, background color. If you try to superimpose the buoy color onto this light-yellow legend background, you’ll see that the buoy color doesn’t look nearly as vibrant as it does on the blue water background. It may even look like a different color entirely (see Figure 3.8). If you find this sort of thing happening on one of your maps, the best thing to do is to change the background color of the legend to something that more closely matches the main background color of the map. This effect, where colors appear differently depending on their background
FIGURE 3.7
Rather than creating a full box around the map key, a short line above and below the legend items could suffice, keeping things neat but uncluttered.
FIGURE 3.8
This is an example of chromatic contrast. The two inside boxes are actually the same yellow color, but it looks different depending on the background. This becomes important when you are trying to match legend colors to map colors.