Connect2 Tender

First draft of illustrated strapline for Sustrans Connect2 interpretation board template, unfinished.

Part of a national project extending and linking public access networks to local communities. The aim, to engage and encourage public use beyond recreation.  

Design Rationale

The illustration is a cohesive montage depicting a variety of landscape types in the background and network user types in the foreground. The variety of users to include school pupils on their way to school, manual and blue collar workers on their way to work and shoppers on their way home. Although aesthetically pleasing, the illustrated Strap line is a deliberate vehicle to indicate the potential use of each network and is further reinforced by the placement of the Connect2 tag line “Everyday journeys by foot or bike”.

The landscapes represent rural, urban and city communities and also indicate each nation e.g. Mountain ranges for Scotland, sweeping valleys for Wales, rugged coastline for Northern Ireland and open countryside featuring oak trees for England. Each topographic feature follows Sustrans specific colour swatch i.e. Pink/Northern Ireland, Dark blue/Scotland, Rust/Wales. Additional palette includes Sustrans logo bright green and grey, Route Sign blue and England Safe Routes to Schools bright blue.

Peppered throughout the landscapes, will be iconic architectural features including bridges, village church spires, perhaps mosques and city skyscrapers. Additional transport infrastructure such as trains, buses and a canal and towpath (as an historic reference to Sustrans) will also be incorporated.   

Style

Contemporary vector illustration, inspired by flat poster engravings from the 1930s to 50s, illustrated by the likes of Brian Cook and Harold Briercliffe’s, Britain by Bike book covers.

     

Lias Line NCN Route 41

National Cycle Network Route 41
Lias Line, Draycote
OS Grid ref: SP 443700
January 2011


Warwickshire Butterfly Conservation have initiated the Small Blue Butterfly Project, targeting one of the last remaining populations of the Red Listed Small Blue, at Southam Quarry.

With its proximity to this part of the Lias Line greenway on Route 41, both organisations are working in partnership to enhance the habitat and hopefully extend the range of the UK smallest butterfly. Such specific management will not only encourage other threatened butterfly species such as Grizzled and Dingy skippers, but also a wider variety of wildlife to the area.

Working with Sustrans Ecologist, Hannah Roberts and Mike Slater from Warwickshire Butterfly Conservation, we are designing a series of interpretation boards along the route.

To find out more about The Small Blue Butterfly Project and Sustrans National Cycle Network follow these links:

http://www.warwickshire-butterflies.org.uk/small-blue.asp

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/what-we-do/national-cycle-network/biodiversity-conservation

Sustrans NCN Route 41

National Cycle Network Route 41
Sustrans.

April 2009

A series of three interpretation boards installed along the disused Leamington to Rugby railway line, at Draycote, Birdingbury and Long Itchington.

The main feature of each board is a comprehensive, yet simple map that orientates the viewer to their position within the whole route. Additional information details both the historic and wildlife interest of each location which describes the changing landscape at various points in time.

At Birdingbury, some 250 million years ago, you look out on a landscape dominated by tree-like ferns and stand upon lower lias clays and limestones formed a little later in the Jurassic period. Then, between the early 1800’s and the late 1960’s, a thriving railway system serving both commercial and industrial transport, thunders through.

And today, remnants can still be seen, such as the old railway station house and two descendant species of fern growing on the platform walls.

The path was opened in 2004 and now forms part of a network of over 12,000 miles of traffic-free routes throughout the UK.

http://www.sustrans.org.uk