Skip to main content

Slow Ways - logo design competition

Earlier in the year, I joined the team of people who has been creating Slow Ways routes: walking routes to connect up the UK's towns and cities and other large population centres. These follow public footpaths and bridle ways and avoid busy roads.

The idea is another initiative from Daniel Raven Ellison.
The project now needs a logo.

The Slow Ways will be a network of 7,000 walking routes that connect Great Britain’s towns and cities as well as thousands of villages. People will be able to use the Slow Ways to walk between neighbouring settlements or daisy-chain them for longer journeys.
The first draft of the Slow Ways routes have been imagined and created in lockdown by hundreds of volunteers from across the country.
We now need a strong visual identity for the Slow Ways. In the future this might be used on signage, waymarkers and maps. For now, it will be used on the website we are creating as well as t-shirts, posters and in other places.
That’s why we’re organising this competition. We’re looking for a strong symbol for the Slow Ways that will give them a clear identity. You can see some examples of symbols used on trails around the world on this Twitter thread.

We are looking for a symbol that:
  • is a snail or snail inspired
  • is clear, bold and timeless
  • can be stencilled
  • can be easily adapted to one colour, but you can be as colourful as you like
  • would look good big or small, on a map, waymarker, sign, pin-badge, t-shirt or poster

A snail was suggested by a Slow Ways volunteer and this has turned into a much-loved idea. Snails are slow and humble explorers that carry their homes on their backs, leave trails, are found nearly everywhere and, unknowingly, will actually share the Slow Ways with us. They also have a very distinctive and identifiable shape.

As well as having their symbol used for the Slow Ways, there will be a prize of £250 for the artist(s) of the winning design.

A judging panel will shortlist designs and pick the final winner. The panel will be made up of volunteers who have helped to draft the Slow Ways network and relevant experts.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Explore the world with the Go Jetters

Really useful post and resource for those teaching Primary Geography . A new set of characters called the Go Jetters who teach young people about key geographical ideas. Geography helps children to make sense of their world. Very young children are naturally curious, and they love to actively explore the world around them, noticing all kinds of detail. That’s why they need to develop geographical vocabulary like the names of places, people and things, and the words needed to describe and locate them. It helps to think of children as little geographers – they each have their own world of private geographies  - the places they name for themselves with meanings that only they understand: the dens where they hide out with their friends, special meeting places in the school playground. Whether they’re playing in the back garden, or splashing through a muddy puddle on the way to school, children are intrepid explorers making new (to them) discoveries about the world every sing...

Edward Storey - Fenland chronicler and poet

I have worked in the Fenland city of Ely for the last six years - commuting in all weathers and at all times through the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Fens... Edward Storey has died at the age of 88. He was a chronicler of the Fens: an author and poet. There was a lovely piece on Edward on BBC Radio Norfolk that I heard yesterday on the way home, which described him as 'a poet of place'. You walk the roof of the world here. Only the clouds are higher And they are not permanent. Trees are too distant for the wind to reach And mountains hide below the horizon. The wind labours through reed As though they were the final barrier. Houses and farms cling like crustations To the black hull of the earth. Here, you must walk with yourself, Or share the spirits of forgotten ages. Keith Skipper has written a lovely piece in the EDP. More to come on Edward in a future blog post.... Image: Alan Parkinson - Fens near Manea - CC licensed

Making Space for Sand

  Making Space for Sand is a project I was made aware of recently. The ‘Building Community Resilience on a Dynamic Coastline by Making Space for Sand’ project (also known as Making Space for Sand or MS4S) is one of 25 national projects funded by DEFRA as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme (FCRIP).  The programme will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate. The project website has an excellent section outlining the formation of Sand Dunes, particularly within the located context of Cornwall. Sand Dunes are an important part of the coastal defences in the locations where they are found. I am particularly familiar with the dunes on the North Norfolk Coast at places like Holkham.  I've previously carried out fieldwork on those dunes with both GCSE and 'A' level students, and also  Atkins has provided GIS support and created some visualisations of future landscapes.