Motion Graphics Maps Workflow Simplified with ERSI ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud

 I am just finishing a documentary project that involved mapping several hundred locations in a series of motion graphics.

To do so, I used a combination of Illustrator, GoogleEarth, and Excel spreadsheets. Then I converted Illustrator paths to Apple Motion as explained in this post and animated.

Now with this ArcGIS Map add-on to Illustrator, I can skip GoogleEarth and instead import the spreadsheet inside the map console, and build / modify location markers directly inside Illustrator.

Building Maps inside Illustrator! Whoa!

Importing locations via spreadsheet! So easy!

Next time I need to build maps for a project I will likely use this workflow. Note that at this time though, only a few basemaps are vector graphics. The rasterized basemaps are of limited interest to me.

Check this YouTube video for a demo on how to use ArcGIS inside Illustrator.