How to make custom map design in MapTiler Cloud

This article will show you how to change the looks of any map in the MapTiler Cloud. You will learn how to change the colors, language, font, labels, and many other features in your map. All that in a few mouse clicks.

Important notice

Always keep in mind that map styles are a highly subjective topic. What can look good according to someone, does not necessarily have to look good to someone else. It is recommended to follow general guidelines on how to combine colors and types. You can find some hints e.g. at Carto.

Start creating your map design now

Go to MapTiler Cloud and click the Customize a copy button in the administration menu.

User-friendly Customize tool

The customize tool is available after you sign in, click on Maps and select any of them. The Customize a copy button will bring you directly to the tool, where you can see a group of layers and colors that currently presents this group. By clicking on the color palette, you will get a color selection dialog to define a new color for a selected group. The color selection tool capabilities are operating system-dependent and range from a simple window with color selection and its representation in hex format to complex tools with color-picking options. You can also turn off the layer completely.

All changes can be reverted to the default value using a reset button.

You can find a few presets (the number depends on which map you start with) which you can further customize.

From the Customize tool menu, you can access the Language and Mics tab.
There are currently more than 50 languages supported with an option to include alternative names for non-Latin alphabets. The language selection is also possible for raster tiles.
Mics tab offers font selection and a button for switching off 3D buildings.

When you are done with the customization, click the Save button and Close for leaving Customize tool. To make your map available for use, click on the Deploy button, which is the last step. Then your map is available for insertion into your web, used on a web, inside a mobile app, as a static image, or as a WMTS service. This map is now available on My maps, where you have all mentioned services available, you can further Customize it or Delete it if you find it unnecessary.

All changes based on our basic maps done using Customize tool will stay compatible with future versions of MapTiler Cloud.

Build your map design from scratch

You also have an option to build your own map design from scratch either in the graphical user interface or by writing or uploading GeoJSON code.

Conclusion

There are several ways how to edit a map style in the MapTiler Cloud. Each of them offers a different level of customization tools, according to the preference and skill of the user. MapTiler Style Editor offers advanced tools for editing map styles, including geo JSON editor.

Useful links

Pinterest - amazing map styles
OpenMapTiles - Open Map Styles