Introduction

These entries loosely follow a template first outlined in 1977 by Christopher Alexander and his colleagues in their seminal book A Pattern Language.

Each pattern includes:

• a short title,
• a rating,
• a brief description of a problem or conflict (in bold),
• and a brief description of a solution.

I use a simple rating system to distinguish the importance of each pattern based on the idea of how often the pattern applies to a map.

Importance	Description
	Applies to all maps; there are few, if any, exceptions.
	Applies to majority, but not all; there are some exceptions, but not many.
	Applies to many, but not majority; for many situations, this pattern will not apply.
	Applies to a few maps; only applies to some specific cases.

I organize the patterns into categories and the order aims to suggest a sequence of decisions that you may need to think through as you begin to design an original map.