A real vector map, not the stand-in shapes. Geometry is US Census state boundaries via us-atlas, projected in Albers equal-area — the standard for a US map, and the reason the country does not look stretched at the edges the way a plain lat/long plot does. Alaska and Hawaii are insets, as they are on every US map.
Boundaries are simplified to about 1.1px of the drawing, which is invisible at these sizes and takes the whole 51-state file to ~88KB of path data. All six variations below share one copy of that geometry and differ only in CSS, so whichever wins costs the page the same.
The caption matters more than the drawing. This is a service area, not a licensure claim — and the live site’s own disclaimer says Washington, Idaho and Oregon while the client advertises Washington, Oregon and Colorado. That contradiction is unresolved, so no “licensed in” wording goes near this map until the client settles it.
1Filled states, NIGHT highlight
The conventional locator and the one nobody misreads: every state drawn, the three filled in NIGHT. White hairlines between states do the separating, so no border colour is spent. Safe, legible at any size, and it is the version that survives being shrunk into a footer later.
2Hierarchy — the three states are not equal
The client’s own ranking, drawn: Washington first, Oregon secondary, Colorado retained. Washington takes NIGHT, Oregon BUSINESS teal, Colorado FREEDOM. The map stops being a list of three places and starts saying something — which is the only reason to draw a map rather than write “WA, OR, CO”. Check this against the licensing question before it ships: the live disclaimer says Washington, Idaho and Oregon, and that contradiction is unresolved.
3Outline country, solid states
No fill anywhere except the three. The rest of the country is a hairline at low opacity, so the page’s white ground shows through and the map weighs almost nothing. The most elegant of the six and the most fragile — below about 420px wide the hairlines start to break up.
4Silhouette — no internal borders
The country as a single soft shape with the state lines removed entirely, and the three cut into it in NIGHT. This is a picture of where the firm works rather than a data graphic, which suits an “elevated, simplified” brief. The trade is precision: without borders, a viewer can tell roughly where the shapes are but not exactly which states they touch.
5Gold highlight on a quiet ground
The same map with CONFIDENCE gold as the highlight instead of NIGHT. Gold reads as attention everywhere else on this page — it is the Book a Consultation colour — so spending it on a map is spending it on something nobody clicks. Included so the comparison is on the table rather than assumed.
6Dark ground
Inverted: a NIGHT field with the country in a low-contrast tint and the three states in CONFIDENCE. Strongest presence of the six and the only one that would need its own band — dropped into the current cream panel it fights everything around it.
In place — replacing the stand-in in section 5
The same drawing dropped into the real band, at the real width, using the hierarchy palette from option 2 throughout. Two things show up only at full size, and both are decisions rather than details.
The three hand-drawn blobs have to go. They were a stand-in for a map; with a map present they say the same thing twice, and the second telling is the less accurate one.
A real map is much taller than the placeholder. The hatched slot is 170px. The map is 1.7:1, so at the wide column it stands about 440px and at full band width about 730px. Dropping the Alaska and Hawaii insets barely helps — they tuck under the lower 48 rather than extending the drawing — so the only real lever is how wide the map is allowed to be.
nowWhat is there nowThe cream band holds a hatched placeholder 170px tall and three hand-drawn blobs labelled WA, OR and CO. The blobs exist because there was no map — once the map is real they are the same information drawn twice, so every replacement below deletes them.
US locator mapreal vector asset — three states filled in brand colour the schematic shapes beside this are a stand-in
WAORCOService area — not a licensing claim wording pending the client
1Map in the narrow cell, key alongsideThe smallest change to the band: the map takes the right column and the key takes the left, so the drawing lands at about 450px wide and 265 tall. The band grows from roughly 230px to 330px, which is the least any real map can cost here. Best choice if section 5 must stay compact.
Washington — primary
Oregon
Colorado
Service area — not a licensing claim
2Map large, hierarchy key beside itThe map takes the wide column at about 750px, so it stands roughly 440px tall and the band lands near 500px. This is the honest cost of a real map at that width — the placeholder was 170px, so the band nearly triples. Worth it only if the map is meant to be a feature of the section rather than a footnote to it.
Washington — primary
Oregon
Colorado
Service area — not a licensing claim
3Full band width, caption underneathNo columns at all: the map runs the whole inner width and the caption sits under it, centred. At 1244px the drawing is about 730px tall and the band is taller than most sections on the page — it stops being a locator and becomes a chapter. Shown so the scale is on the record.
Washington — primary
Oregon
Colorado
Service area — not a licensing claim
4No band — the map sits on the pageThe cream box exists to frame a placeholder. A finished drawing may not need a container at all — here the map sits straight on the page ground with the key beside it and no border, no fill, no padding. Quietest of the five and the most in keeping with “elevated, simplified”; the risk is that the map stops being clearly part of section 5 and starts floating between sections.
Washington — primary
Oregon
Colorado
Service area — not a licensing claim
Cropping for height
The band is only tall because the map is. Colorado is the lowest thing that has to be on it, so everything below Colorado is height the page is paying for and the section does not use. Cutting there takes the drawing from 1.70:1 to 3.12:1 and roughly halves the band.
Two consequences to accept with it. Alaska and Hawaii go — they sit in the discarded strip, and half an inset is worse than none. And the cut has to read as deliberate: a hard edge floating inside a padded box looks like a bug, so the map runs to the bottom of the band in every board below.
1Cut just below ColoradoThe tightest honest crop: Colorado’s southern edge is the lowest thing that has to be on the map, so everything under it goes. The drawing goes from 1.70:1 to 3.12:1 — at the wide column that is 240px tall instead of 440, and the band lands near 300px rather than 500. Alaska and Hawaii are dropped outright rather than half-shown. The cut has to look deliberate. A hard edge floating inside a padded box reads as a rendering fault; the map must run to the band’s bottom edge, as it does here.
Washington — primary
Oregon
Colorado
Service area — not a licensing claim
2Cut below the southwestOne step looser — Arizona, New Mexico and the top of Texas survive, and the country still reads as most of a country rather than a slice. 2.43:1, about 310px tall in the wide column. The middle position: shorter than the full map, less of a statement than the tight crop.
Washington — primary
Oregon
Colorado
Service area — not a licensing claim
3Cut below Colorado, faded outThe same crop with the bottom 30% dissolved instead of cut. The map stops rather than ends, which removes the question of whether the edge is intentional. It also softens the only hard geometry in the band. The cost is a mask, which means the artwork can no longer be dropped in as a flat SVG without that gradient travelling with it.