themselves become quite colorful: charts, graphs, north arrows, and icons of any
sort. The thing to remember for these margin elements is that while it is tempting to
“decorate” them with many colors, it is often unnecessary to do so and can instead
grab attention away from the map element. The following excerpt from an article by
Stephen Few illustrates this point: “… conferences dedicated to color and its use for
information displays, exhibit great restraint in their use of color during presentations.
For example, their PowerPoint slides tend to include grays far more often than you’ll
typically see elsewhere. These experts realize that color should be used meaning‑
fully, not arbitrarily or gratuitously.”3