This is a snapshot from a wall map I made for a client last year using Mapublisher and an old version of Adobe Illustrator. The client wanted every single "populated place" in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, as well as all State Highways on the map. Suffice to say that 35,000 places later, my eyes were ready to jump out of my head! And yes, some of the fonts were smaller than 7 pts! :) What stinks is now in hindsight, without the pressure of a deadline, I see so many things I would have done differently. (First of all, I should have picked a typography with a Narrow style. It would have saved space, but at the time I was in love with the font I chose. I was blinded by typographic loyalty. Ugh...At any rate, you may think the Brazil map and its labeling is a punitive exercise. But trust me, learning how to kern, curl, tweak, shape-shift, and nudge labels around one another early on in your cartographic careers will come in very handy someday when you are asked to make a detailed reference map. So please, while you are cursing your instructor's name, learn from the experience and take notes on any tricks you come up with so you can reference them in the future!
OK, that's enough lecturing for tonight. I am still very stoked about your Brazil maps thus far. I was really impressed. But keep on working them over -- there are always improvements to be made! And remember, this is going to go in your portfolio someday.
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