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

Ideal scenery

Check out this Robert MacFarlane tweet, and the replies that follow for a whole host of ideas on different people's ideal landscapes... Some wonderful images and brief descriptions ideal for sharing... "Tramlines and slagheaps, pieces of machinery, That was, and still is, my ideal scenery." WH Auden Question: what is your "ideal scenery"? pic.twitter.com/8QLS0HRZt9 — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 6, 2017

The path more travelled

I'm currently reading Nicholas Crane's new book on the history of Britain's footpaths: how they came about originally following the drowning of Doggerland , and were then refined by successive waves of change: horses, the Roman invasion etc. It's a dense and scholarly work, with plenty of points of interest and relevance to geographers exploring the connections between people and the landscape. He's taking his book on the road in a series of talks, with three confirmed so far. Here's the description for his talk at Stanford's book shop at the end of the month . He's also speaking in Exeter and Stamford. Walking is a cornerstone of British identity and the most popular form of exercise in the UK. But how much do we know about the paths that we walk? What is their history? Why do they follow the routes that they do? Are they permanent? Can we designate more of them?​ The Path More Travelled is a coast-to-coast history of footpaths from the stone age paths...

Glacier Melt Visualisation

This nice interactive infographic visualises the ice loss from Switzerland's glaciers. It is one of several from the VisQuill site , developed by Dr. Benjamin Niedermann.