On Graphic Design in Mapping

I've been thinking a lot about how to best design my maps.  I came across a reading in the fonts section of our textbooks that laid out some basic rules:  serif font to be used for proper names, like "Idaho" or "Harrisburg", sans serif font to be used for natural features, like "Susquehanna River" or "Appalachian Mountains" (Making Maps, pg. 240).  At first I was delighted.  In a world of rules, all I have to do is learn all the rules and Everything Will Be Perfect!  Eventually, however, my delight faded to a sort of resentment.  Who the hell are (checks book) John Krygier and Denis Wood to tell me how to make my maps?  So what, so Krygier was a president of the North American Cartographic Information Society, and Wood has written another book on mapping?  Okay, so it turns out that yeah, they know their stuff.

So now I have to wonder-- when do you break rules?  I'm starting to think of rules not so much as rules and more as conventions.  We are used to seeing the Pacific Ocean symbolized blue. (Making Maps, pg. 266)  It would be flat-out bizarre to symbolize it as red.  (Perhaps the Red Sea could be red?... No.  Still want to do it.)  We are used to a north-up projection.  It would be unusual to throw in, say, a dymaxion projection into the mix.

"Buckminster Fuller" was an answer on Jeopardy! this week to a question about map projection.  I about peed myself.

However, there's a time and a place to break rules, or break conventions, as the case may be.  I'm starting to think that conventions should only really be broken to make a point, like that there is no true correct orientation, or that water isn't always blue.

The Mighty Susquehanna, known for a lot of tannins.