Last term I took a class called Map Design and Production.  It was the first class I took that was completely focused on map design.  The teacher was an actual cartography for the BLM, so he gave a lot of insight into making a map geared towards your specific audience.  Up to this point all the GIS classes I took simply had us spit out a map using ArcGIS (with the time and right knowledge you can make a decent map in ArcGIS).  In this design class we used ArcGIS to gather  and analyze the data and then exported the basic GIS map into Adobe illustrator, where we made our final map. Another aspect that made this class interesting was that we focused solely on making maps for print rather then web display.  Two differences between the formats are the way you select colors (RGB for web, CYMK for print)  and print maps are static rather then interactive.  I would be interested in taking a class or learning more about web mapping since we are seeing a large increase in its presence.

Selecting the right colors for your maps can make a huge difference on how they are persevered.   Trying to find the right color can be challenging and take a lot of work.  Luckily my instructor introduced us to a site called color brewer ( http://colorbrewer2.org/ ).  The site gives advice on which colors to use depending on several criteria.  I found the sight helpful, but still had to spend time tweaking the colors so they looked the way I wanted them.    Below is an example of a  map I designed using color brewer.