OpenFreeMap Map Styles

One very important feature I overlooked in the launch of OpenFreeMap is the ability to customize the styles of OpenFreeMap map-tile sets using the Maputnik open-source visual editor for the MapLibre Style Specification. If you have ever wanted to make your maps stand out, reflect your brand, or just look completely unique you can now do that for free by editing OpenFreeMap map tile styles with Maputnik.

OpenFreeMap "lets you display custom maps on your website and apps for free." Currently, OpenFreeMap offers four default styles: Positron, Bright, Liberty, and 3D. The appearance of these default styles can be customized using Maputnik. Maputnik is an open-source visual editor for creating and modifying Mapbox GL and Maplibre GL style JSON files, which define how maps are rendered. These styles control the appearance of vector tiles, including colors, fonts, line widths, and layers, allowing users to create custom map designs.

Once you have created your own style from an OpenFreeMap default style you simply need to export/download the JSON style. This JSON style can then be used with the MapBox and MapLibre map libraries.

Maputnik is very intuitive to use, especially if you've previously edited map styles using tools like the Google Maps Style Editor or Mapbox Studio. I've been using Maputnik for the first time this morning (with OpenFreeMap default styles), and I quickly managed to create a No Label and Toner map style. 

I've created a little demo OpenFreeMap Styles, which allows you to preview my No Label and Toner styles. You can even download the JSON files for these two styles if you want to use them in your own map projects (both styles were created very quickly this morning, so could definitely benefit from more refinement in Maputnik if you decide to use them in a project).