Suppose you want to show your readers how to find a local park — let’s call it Tualatin Commons Park, the site of an upcoming yo-yo festival. Here’s the fastest way to customize your own map from an existing source:

First: Find an recent, reliable source map: a tourist brochure, a government map, a commercial road atlas, even a Web database. Scan or copy the map into your computer. (Or, if the map won’t scan cleanly, make a tracing of the key elements — cities, roads, places of interest — and scan that instead.)

Next: Fire up almost any drawing, photo or layout software that lets you create curvy lines and add type. Using the imported scan as a guide, trace all key roads, cities and places of interest. Eliminate any  unnecessary details — unimportant streets, parks, etc. Keep all cartographic elements (roads, rivers, landmarks) that help readers find what they’re looking for.

Finally: Finish your map according to your newspaper’s graphic style. (Here, we’re using Frutiger Condensed for street names, light italic for rivers, etc.)  Add a source attribution, a distance scale and a north arrow, if appropriate. This map can probably be done in less than an hour.