mapbox-cartography

mapbox-cartography is an expert-guidance skill for designing effective, beautiful, and functional maps with Mapbox. It concentrates cartographic craft — visual hierarchy, color theory, typography, and best practices — into actionable rules so map styles read clearly and guide the viewer's attention to what matters, rather than looking cluttered or inconsistent.

The skill teaches how to build visual hierarchy (primary POIs and routes versus secondary roads and labels versus tertiary and background layers) using size, contrast, and color intensity. It covers color harmony (analogous, complementary, monochromatic), color psychology for map features, and accessibility (4.5:1 WCAG AA text contrast, not relying on color alone, colorblind testing, avoiding red/green for critical distinctions). It ships ready-to-use JSON color-palette templates for light, dark, high-contrast, and vintage themes, along with pointed rules such as keeping dark-theme roads a neutral gray so colored base roads don't compete with app data layers, and avoiding the 'floating labels' problem where street names sit over invisible roads. It also addresses typography at map scale and lists common mistakes like neglecting performance and mobile testing.

It targets designers, developers, and GIS practitioners building map styles with Mapbox who want principled cartographic decisions rather than ad-hoc color picking. It is pure design guidance with example style JSON and no code execution or credential handling, making it a benign reference.