How Do Your Eyes Travel Over a Map?

[delguidance]

I'm trying to divide the spaces of the map according to artistic principles of how to "compose" a picture. Those principles involve how the viewer's eyes travel over a piece of art and what can lead that gaze to linger or remain inside the art. Then I realized labels create focal points of their own since you both view a map as a picture and at the same time focus in to read the labels. So I wanted to compare a map with labels and a map with no labels and get feedback on how the labels affect how the map is viewed.

As you look at these two maps, where does your gaze travel?
Do the labels change how you look at the map?
Are there certain parts to which you return?
Are there parts that you look at on the top, but then go down to the labels to see what it is named?
Do you want to look at the one with labels even before looking at the one without?

If you need a bit of back story, the world is called Designalgia from the roots for Maker's Pain. It's a world where both writing and innovation involve Faustian bargains. For any writing to have meaning you have to trade something with a devil or demon. Innovations, and new ideas involve even bigger trades. This particular area is a small sea and a set of straights that are moderately well colonized, yet there still remains a big mysterious island in the middle that has resisted exploration. I literally just made that up for backstory. Really I'm trying to apply principles to how a map works as a piece of art.