How to make custom map design in MapTiler Cloud

Map design Advanced cartography examples

This set of articles represents a recommended selection of advanced cartography examples.

  1. How to make custom map design in MapTiler Cloud
  2. How to style a retro map
  3. How to style a pop art map
  4. Map styled like a picture
  5. How to make an Oktoberfest map
  6. How to style a choropleth map in the Customize
  7. How to use MapTiler Ocean

This article will show you how to change the look of any map in MapTiler Cloud. You will learn how to change the colors, language, font, labels, and many other features of your map. All that in a few mouse clicks.

Map styles are a highly subjective topic. What can look good according to someone does not necessarily have to look good according to someone else. We recommend following general graphic guidelines (you can find some hints e.g. at Carto). But don’t forget to stay true to your own personal/brand style and enjoy the map-making process.

Start creating your map design now

Go to MapTiler Cloud and click on a new map button.

map-wizard.png

Then select the map which suits the best to your use case. Some of our maps offer several different color versions. You can find here maps for the light and dark modes of your application, and they will still have the same data as the default map for this use case.

color-variants.png
Click on the CUSTOMIZE button.

customize.png

User-friendly Customize tool

MapTiler Customize is a new-generation online map editor. When opening it, you will see the Quick edits (Alt+Q) panel, where you can adjust the map color schemeand typography.

In the Settings panel (Alt+S), you can select the language of the map from more than 50 languages. You can also adjust units (Meters/Feet) or borders.

If you would like to adjust individual layers and their appearance during zooming, click on the Layers panel (Alt+L) or on a preferred map feature.

You can also add new layers or your own data uploaded to your account.

To make your map available for use, hit the Save & Publish. Then your map is available for insertion into your web, used on a web, inside a mobile app, as a static image, or as a WMTS service. This map is now available on My maps, where you have all mentioned services available, you can further Customize it or Delete it.

Build your map design from scratch

You also have the option to write the JSON code of your map directly in Customize. There is a JSON Editor (Alt+E) available for every individual layer.

json-editor.png

You can directly type or paste into the editor and use its search or focus functions.

json-search.png

If there are complex expressions used in the map and you want to edit them, the UI will also take you to the JSON editor, just click on the “Set by expression” button.

json-expression.png

Conclusion

MapTiler Customize offers both simple and advanced tools for editing map styles, including the JSON editor.

Next steps

Continue to How to style a retro map to learn how to create an old-school look & feel for a basemap.

Quick map editing
Global map settings
Choose a map style
Layer styling
Layer filters
Add a new style layer
Editing JSON