Chalkboards - Ephemeral Art for the Waggon and Horses, Milton

Some messages are irresistable - such as "Chalkboard writer wanted" outside the Waggon and Horses in Milton at the end of last year. But I resisted! Then the milton-chat e-mail came around with "Chalkboard writer wanted, would suit student". So I went to visit the Waggon and Horses for a chat and get to know David and Louise, the new publicans. A fortnight later, no students had volunteered and I found myself amongst the bustle of a pub in full redecoration and renovation by not only Louise, David and Batty, but by their family and friends. I was about to tackle my first chalkboard.

But Why?!?

1. They were (and still are) a friendly bunch. 2. The challenge of a new art form and 3. I like the thought of ephemeral art. You create something with a limited lifetime.

View full album of chalkboard pictures to date

Chalkboards are done with chalk pens which are like giant felt tips. The chalk colour is either waterproof or at least water resistant to rain. This means that you are working on something that will look quite rough close up as you cannot do very fine detail. However, that is not a problem - you want to create an impact at a distance.

Half the work is sorting out your layout and lettering. The message has to be as minimal as possible, so the writing does not get too small to read. If possible create additional features that also give the message, perhaps as a picture or decoration. I had naively thought that a board would take about an hour to do. For me as a novice with the medium, it takes longer!

Apart from the pleasure of making a new Chalkboard, the thing that I really learnt was an appreciation of other chalkboard artists.

Chalkboard Art

Next time you are out and about, look out for the chalkboards outside the pubs and restaurants. You will find three distinct groups. 1. Do it yourself by the owner. 2. Commercially made, over-precise signs and 3. Work by artists who may have traveled halfway across the country to spend a day or half a day at a venue to create signs to order, on site or back in their own workshops.

Chalkboard signs have to grab your attention, albeit fleetingly, generate thirst or hunger. Signs make you subconsciously decide - this is a place to stop. They give an impression of the quality and type of an establishment.

When you look closer, you then see how a good chalkboard artist cleverly uses colour, bold strokes, shading and blending to create the unique and yet ephemeral images and writing.

Chalkboard art is a successful commercial art form that survives in a highly digitised and graphically precise and visually educated world. Each writer or artist will have their signature strokes and designs. And the work will last until the next offer, season, change of menu or beer hosted at a pub.

I enjoy the challenge of chalkboard and cheerfully acknowledge that now I can appreciate those who are far far better at it than me. If you cannot get out at the moment to sample what is near you, or if you are interested in becoming a chalkboard artist, here are some random links and inspirations, starting with John Neal, who also shows you some of the techniques and skills:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5HLI8j4fXI
http://gwenmossblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/10-things-you-should-know-about.html
http://www.wordupsigns.co.uk/chalkboard-art/
http://www.bobbydazzlersigns.com/chalkboard-art/
http://www.pubchalkboardartist.co.uk/pub-chalkboards.php
http://rhonnadesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/chalkboard-art-cheer-rhonna-style.html
Chalkboard pictures on Google Images

International Patchwork Pleasures

What do you do when you your passion is patchwork and you never have enough material on hand? Claudia Pfeil started her own shop, Quilt & Co (www.quilt-und-co.de* and also http://www.meinbildkalender.de/shop.cfm?sesid=&artid=17283) in Krefeld, Germany's Ritterstrasse. An Aladdin's Cave of fabrics, yarns and threads, the greatest delight were the glorious quilts on display in her workshop, next to the long armed quilting machines.

Whilst some of the pieces followed the traditional geometric patterns, you could see from the exhibition pieces that Claudia's artistic flair is with freely conceived works. The calendar images in the link above merely give a hint of the rich silks and glittering threads. the attached image is of a prize winning piece - catch up with her enthusiasm in her own words here http://www.quiltersrule.com/misc/claudiaPfeil.html.

A poster in the shop reminded us of Monday's visit to the German Textile Museum in Krefeld Linn (http://www.krefeld.de/textilmuseum). The current exhibition is 'European Art Quilts VII'  (http://www.europeanartquilt.com*). These were the winners of a competition by the European Art Quilt Foundation. Exhibitors came from 15 countries and presented 48 contemporary quilts. The exhibition runs till February 2013.

The pieces displayed a wide variety of styles and media that were incorporated into the quilts, from maps, text, to screen printing. Some of the examples can be seen here http://www.krefeld.de/C12574810047BA9C/html/811F1A8DF8B7DABBC1257884003903FB?Opendocument.

Louise Thomas and I visited The Manor at Hemingford Grey (http://www.greenknowe.co.uk), the former home of children's author Lucy Boston. Here we were privileged to take part in a special tour, showing the hand sewn, minutely detailed and precious quilts, sewn by Lucy Boston during the long winter nights. For those who cannot visit, they have been published in 'The Patchwork Quilts of Lucy Boston', by Diana Boston.

Louise Thomas is currently in Swansea and enthusiastically making patchwork cushions and other quilts as you can see from her blog http://louisespatchwork.blogspot.de.

We left Claudia Pfeil's shop after an enjoyable long conversation, with some fabric for Louise's next project.

*these sites use Flash and may not display on more recent Android or HTML 5 compliant devices, like Google Nexus

The large Camera Obscura at Mülheim - visit with Ulrich Heker

Camera Obscura in Mülheim

Ulrich Heker of Teeth'R'US invited us to visit Mülheim last week. With a shared interest in photography in addition to our DE-GB collaborations and publications, the large camera obscura with its associated museum was an ideal place for an outing. for the full slide show, visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/CameraObscuraInMulheim?authuser=0&feat=directlinkmore text

Taking the lift to the dome of the large converted water tower, we entered the darkened viewing room of the camera obscura. When the aperture 10m above us was opened, light was reflected off a 300mm mirror that could be rotated at the top of the dome, through a set of lenses with an aperture of about 140mm and projected to give an incredibly realistic view of the surroundings on a wide table.

In the weak winter sun, the scene was not as bright as at noon on a full summer's day, but when the mirror was rotated to view the nearby roads, the cars and buses seemed to be toys within touching distance.

Fortunately, I was armed with camera and tripod and was able to take a series of images, not just of the projections, but also of the amazed and interested spectators. Their faces glowed in the reflected light.

The winter sun was setting and over a period of half an hour came into projected view. We first followed it with a small screen until it reached the main projection table. Here, glowing in it's full glory, the disc of around 8cm diameter clearly showed two sunspots. Shining through the lower bands of the atmosphere, the disc also rippled with slight atmospheric disturbances, as if it were alive.

The principle of the camera obscura was known to Aristotle. As children we came across the portable version, the pinhole camera. David Hockney recently gave an excellent TV series on how Renaissance artists probably used the method for their incredible perspective and realistic paintings. However, large scale projections still have their own magic when you encounter them.

Coming down through the museum, we found the photographer Michael Schaaf (www.colloidon.de) preparing for a workshop with an old plate camera,using the wet colloidon principle. I picked up a very useful tip here: Use long exposures to photograph a portrait and you avoid the bane of any photographer's life, people blinking just as you take the picture. With a longer exposure ( a couple of seconds) blinking does not register. But your subject has to remain very still!

Ulrich Heker is himself an accomplished photographer (and has done nearly all the photos for the articles I translated for various dental magazines). So we naturally had an extended conversation with Michael Schaaf, which tested the patience of our companions.

If you are ever near Mülheim in Germany, make a point of visiting the Camera Obscura there. Other exmples worldwide can be found by following the links here http://www.camera-obscura-muelheim.de/cms/camera_obscura_weltweit1.html.

Designing the book cover for Harriet's Holiday

The accompanying slideshow gives a visual timeline of how the book cover for Ruth Leffler's children's book 'Harriet's Holiday'  was created. The process is expanded below.

(if you cannot see it below, please visit https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/HarrietSHollidayTheEvolutionOfABookCover?authuser=0&feat=directlink)

View all

Get your own

I was chatting with the author, Ruth Leffler, at a meeting of the Huntingdonshire Business Network about her completed manuscript of her children's book, Harriet's Holiday. The main stumbling block was the completion of a book cover.

Ruth Leffler's vision was an image relating to a particular part of the book where Harriet, on holiday, climbs the stairs of an old Scottish house. She finds an old arched door that is partly open, revealing a child's bedroom. A friendly teddy bear rests on the bed, there is a sheepskin rug on the floor and the windows looked out over the nearby loch.

The imagery immediately fired my imagination and I begged to be given first opportunity to design the cover.

Back home, I began with some quick sketches of how the room might be arranged and, more importantly, where the door would be in relation to the room and the rest of the house. This was followed by where to place Harriet. The decision was to have her at the threshold, just about to enter and pushing open the door.

The book is itself magical, with Harriet entering pictures for adventures. Therefore, rather than having a normal perspective, I placed the reader higher up, looking down on Harriet and over her shoulder into the room.

This being a book cover, the image also needed relatively uncluttered areas for the title 'Harriet's Holiday' in large lettering at the top and 'Ruth Leffler' as the author's name at the bottom.

As the medium, I decided to use soft pastels. In the latter part of the slideshow
(if you cannot see it above, please visit https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/HarrietSHollidayTheEvolutionOfABookCover?authuser=0&feat=directlink)
 you can see how the paper was planned out, the general outlines pencilled in and then completed in stages.

Ruth liked the final draft but found the halo around Harriet too distracting. This was therefore toned down usig photoediting as pastels themselved gave too wide a golden edge. It only remained to add the title 'Harriet's Holiday' and 'Ruth Leffler' in a suitable font and the cover was complete.

I'm pleased that Ruth liked the cover for Harriet's Holiday.

If you would like a gentle magical tale to read to your children, or a tale which your own inner child might delight in, Harriet's Holiday by Ruth Leffler is available for Kindle readers on Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harriets-Holiday-ebook/dp/B009NUQEVC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353974966&sr=8-1. Enjoy!

Cambridge Open Studios Milton 2012

Two weekends of welcoming visitors to my Cambridge Open Studio 2012 passed in a mixture of quiet hours and sudden rushes. New work hung framed on one of the two exhibition walls and there was also a collection of mounted work to see.



The work looks at both familiar and unfamiliar subjects in a new light - close up and under the microscope. The photos display a range of illumination techniques.

• Top lighting is where natural or photo lights are shore onto the subject as in conventional photography
• Transmitted light is where the light shines through from behind the subject - similar to photographing stained glass
• Darkfield illumination is where light is shone from an angle at a transparent object, making it glow against a dark background
• Polarisation uses transmitted light with a polarising filter between the light and the sample and a second filter between the sample and the camera. The background is black with the filters at 90 degrees to each other and samples display a spectrum of colours depending on their thickness and composition
• Polarisaton with wave attenuation. This is the same as simple polarisation with the addition of a  sheet of plastic between the first polarisation filter and the sample. Rotation of the plastic sheet and the polarisation filters can give different colour backgrounds.
• Phase A. This is a type of illumination called phase contrast. it makes thin samples with only slight differences in contrast stand out more as bright lines against a darker background.

The aim is to use the skills to bring out the unusual and aesthetic in a particular object.

There were two other enjoyable factors during the exhibition. 

First, I was able to extend my portrait practice of parents with sons or daughters - you can see the results at https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/COSPortraits2012.

Second, I always have a stereomicroscope on hand for people to look through. Gems on jewellery are a favourite, however, this year I found living gems in the form of the relatively new resident to the UK, the iridescent purple and bronze leaf beetle Chysolina americana - look at them in video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nR0Evyc7hc&feature=g-upl.

Thank you to all my visitors and the interesting conversations that we had.

Tollé Architects, visiting a great practice in Verden, Germany

Whilst Fritz-Dieter Tollé Architektur reads like a recommendation in German (Tollé looks like the German exclamation for Great!) it does happen to be apt, as I found out on my current visit to meet up with the next generation, Sandra and Leif Tollé on mutual business.

To get to Verden, I left home at five in the morning after the first really disruptive snowfall of 2012. Fortunately, both trains and planes at Stansted were unaffected (Heathrow had cancelled over half its flights the previous day!) and I arrived in a sunny but arctic Hannover (minus 7 to minus 10 degC!), a chill that bit through even the thickest clothing.

The company itself (see http://www.arch-tolle.de/) is located in the cathedral city of Verden an der Aller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verden_an_der_Aller).

Sandra  Tollé, CEO for the recently opened Duesseldorf branch of the company,
first introduced me to her father, Fritz-Dieter Tollé, on a tour before we had our meeting. He had built up the family owned and run company from scratch 30 years ago into the thriving practice with over 55 employees to date. The company has a broad experience and impressive portfolio in city planning, industrial projects and restoration of historical buildings.

Their current building was created by sympathetically fusing a tobacco factory with a former large stabling block wih a central atrium and stairwell. The spacious interiors over several floors were tastefully decorated in large modern paintings, the occasional architectural model and a lovely display of old survey instruments.

One striking feature was the polite and friendly greetings by any of the staff who passed us by or who we met on the tour, an atmosphere that was borne out by the low staff turnover, with many being longstanding employees.

A constructive business meeting exploring mutual interests and opportunities with Sandra followed before we finished for the day and I explored the city.

Twinned with another historic city, Warwick, Verden has a picturesque pedestrianized and quaintly cobbled city centre, dominated by the romanic (pre-gothic) cathedral at one end and a Rathaus with a lovely 15 bell hourly chime at the other, which plays a familiar German lullaby (Der Mond ist aufgegangen - The moon has risen).

Walking around the city centre, Leif Tollé, Sandra's husband, revealed a deep knowledge of the city history. This included a famous massacre of 4500 heathen Saxons by Charlemagne. It also used to have a wall built right through the middle of the city to separate the secular hoi polloi from the elevated bishopric, resulting in a lucrative toll on churchgoers on Sundays; a situation only alleviated when the town was unified when taken over by the Swedish crown.

I felt quite at home in a city that was situated in an equally flat countryside to the Fens, doubly so when it turned out that there was a long tradition of links to England through the Hanoverians PLUS  a love of horses, reminiscent of Cambridge's neighbouring towns of Newmarket and Huntingdon.

I'm looking forward to another set of interesting meetings here tomorrow.

Your Business Start-up – Lite. Using StencylWorks

Click a few times on game screen to start controls working  


A more light-hearted view of starting up your own business. Converting gained experience into the visual form of a flash game.

I have met a number of business start-ups, providing them with assistance and guidance. This is often in conjunction with other networkers such as HBN.

Starting a business is quite simple in principle. You need to have ideas on the nature of your business. Researching and asking around for information can help you at least identify a possible route to success. Against that you have the barriers and obstacles on your path, often from those who are more interested in telling you why your proposition won’t work: the Scoffers who ridicule your ideas; the Doom-mongers who believe it isn't worth trying in the current market, Blockers who just obstruct you; and the Sharks who see you as easy meat due to your inexperience.

During the Christmas break, I followed up a site recommended on BBC’s Click by Kate Russell in her weekly website review. The site is called Stencyl.com and purports to make the creation of Flash games simple.

On the face of it, it looked so simple that I was tempted to play and create my own game. Stencyl allows you to download a free software, StencylWorks, which adopts a Lego type approach of different game building blocks and behaviours that you can choose as icons. They even provide you with a couple of starter kits that permit you to set up a demo game very easily.

The system IS straightforward but, like everything else, you can still make silly mistakes – and some of the elements provided by other players that you can download do not always work. Whether it is their fault or my ineptitude is a separate issue. However, by following instructions, searching for additional help on the web and perseverance, I was able to design the game you see here.

Basically, it is a wheeled little businessperson who has to travel through a maze to reach HOME (starting his business). On his way he can collect ideas (light bulbs) and information (information symbols) whilst stomping on or avoiding Scoffers, Doom-mongers, Blockers and Sharks.

The characters each have different properties; some can be pushed around, others can be stomped on to remove and two are lethal to the little businessperson. The little businessperson can walk left and right and also do a double jump.

This game is by no means perfect. For example, I can lose my character off screen to cause a restart and I also could not get a scoring system to work. However, it is satisfying to wander through the maze, popping light bulbs and information signs whilst avoiding the visual hazards.

The main lessons from creating this game were – 1. it is fun to acquire a new skill and 2. It is far easier to overcome the obstacles on the way to your new start-up in a game than in real life!

the Armourers' Hall of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers

I had the privilege of visiting the Armourers' Hall of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers, a site occupied in London since 1346.

The reason for the visit was actually a talk on The Future of the International Monetary System by Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the ECB. It was after the talk that I had a chance to look around and get a better impression of the Livery Hall we had been in and prompt a request to be able to photograph in the building.

The Armourers' Hall had survived the Great Fire of London and The Blitz and is a little gem. It has been the home of The Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers since 1346. The Company is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally, the Armourers were responsible for producing armour and have had a link with the Army right through to the present day. Nowadays,The Company is now one of the leading charities in the UK supporting metallurgy and materials science education from primary school to postgraduate levels.

The armourers were given their first Royal Charter in 1453 by King Henry VI. I was thrilled to see the document for the Grant of Arms in 1556 up on the wall in the Court Room, the door to which had a lovely decorated door knob with the mottos "We Are One" and "Make All Sure" that included the Brasiers, who had joined the company sometime in the sixteenth century. The same room contains the petition to Queen Anne in 1708 for a charter including the Brasiers. Another lovely illustrated document, though possible water damaged, is the grant of Bye-Laws under the Charter of Elizabeth I in 1570 in the hall.

Ultimately, I was drawn back to the Livery Hall with its gorgeous lights and the Arms of Aldermen on the walls.   En masse, they provide a colourful adornment to the panelling, however, close up, individual arms are little works of art - and often humour. These are but a few of the collection of Arms of the Alderman of the Company from more than two centuries.

Downstairs, I particularly liked the conjunction of mediaeval armour with an example of more modern Bristol armour

The last minutes before leaving the building I was attracted by the Victorian tiling on the floor. I then tipped my forehead to the bicorne hat in the downstairs office and left, delighted to have had the privilege of visiting this Hall.

This is one of four articles relating to a visit to London on 23rd November 2011:

• The Armourers' Hall of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers
• The International Monetary System is to local crises like the climate is to weather
• Walk from Moorgate to Holborn, via The Armourers Hall, St Pauls demo and St Laurence Jewry
• Some stained glass of St Lawrence Jewry, London

Some stained glass of St Lawrence Jewry, London

After a meeting in the Armourers' Hall to hear a talk on the future of the International Financial System, I took a walk through Cheapside and came upon the church of St Lawrence Jewry. It is the official church of the Lord Mayor of London and the City of London Corporation and stands in the Yard of the Guildhall.

The original church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Seriously damaged during the bombing of London, it was rebuilt in the style of Wren by 1957.

The stained glass windows also date from the restoration in 1957. The ones that caught my attention were the three in the Commonwealth chapel, which depict countries part of the Commonwealth in 1957. The East Windows, of St Paul and St Catherine show the figurative style at the time.

I also photographed the Thomas More window as he apparently was born in Milk St a few yards away from the church.

All the pictures photographed here were designed by Christopher Webb. They are present at full resolution, 10 Mpx, so that you can zoom in on the detail if you wish.

This is one of four articles relating to a visit to London on 23rd November 2011:

• The Armourers' Hall of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers
• The International Monetary System is to local crises like the climate is to weather
• Walk from Moorgate to Holborn, via The Armourers Hall, St Pauls demo and St Laurence Jewry
• Some stained glass of St Lawrence Jewry, London

Stained glass in the cloisters of Worcester Cathedral

Travelling back from Hereford on a dreary, wet Monday, I stopped off at Worcester and went to visit the Cathedral for the first time. With only a couple of hours and my small pocket camera, I liked the story in stained glass all around the cloisters.

The cloister windows on three (and a bit) sides, facing the herb garden, give the story of the English church through the ages, from Saxon times to the end of the 19th Century. Then there was a major new work, the Window of the Millenium, by the artist Mark Cazalet. This was an etched window and was easier to view from the Herb garden.

Photographically, the lighting was very poor due to the grey winter weather. Exposure times ranged from  1/8 to 1/25, averaging at 1/15, a challenge for me, trying to find support, and for the anti-shake function.

I've uploaded the pictures at full size (10Mpx) to the Picasa album so that you can zoom in to see the detail - follow the link from the slideshow above.

Worcester Cathedral is now definitely in my books for a return visit - with a tripod and the SLR - on a better day!

Sick Venom Elementz, Sick arts cuts: Two faces of the generation gap.

When I sat down next to a young woman of 16 on a crowded bus, we ignored each other initially. Not only were we strangers, we were separated by an age factor of at least three and the unspoken assumptions each generation has about the other. Until I started the conversation.

I found that I was sitting next to a member of a dance group that had came second in their group in the national XXL Street Dance Championships (http://www.streetdancexxl.com/championships/). The dance groups Elementz Ent. & Venom are the over 17 and under 17 collectives of dancers from all over the UK, based in Cambridge (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13111440835). The video above illustrates their style and previous performances included Move It, Kidz Take Kontrol, GWI Street Dance Weekend and the iDance UK Hip Hop Champs.

Street dance hit the consciousness of the broader public with the group Diversity winning Britain's got Talent in 2009. Physical, vibrant and often very expressive, street dance occurs in many forms throughout the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_dance), with those derived from breakdancing and popping being the most familiar within the uk.

The young lady, who incidentally already held a clutch of GCSE that would open doors to many professional careers, was obviously passionate about street dance and contemporary dance and this struck a chord with me. Whilst not a dancer myself, I find the exploration of physical language beyond the conventions of traditional ballet in contemporary dance gripping in a good performance.

The BBC recently ran “Dance! The Most Incredible Thing about Contemporary Dance” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0126w6n which introduced me to both the Pet Shop Boys' collaboration in the contemporary ballet “The most incredible thing” which I thoroughly enjoyed. Other names were The Cholomondeleys and Featherstonehaughs (http://www.thecholmondeleys.org/) who have been providing innovative shows for over 23 years. Sadly they are disbanding this year after the 100% withdrawal of their Arts funding. YouTube has a collection of video samples for both of the above. (http://goo.gl/G5uyz and http://goo.gl/x2cgj)

The one thing that had surprised me was the frequent use of the word “sick” to describe the performances of Elementz Ent. & Venom online – until I learnt from my daughter that “Sick” was now the new “Cool”, meaning awesome or brilliant.

So in the end I find myself feeling sick in a positive sense about the vibrancy and success of Cambridge based Elementz Ent. & Venom and sick in the conventional negative sense, that cuts in arts funding have brought forward the demise of The Cholomondeleys and Featherstonehaughs.

Ancient Egyptian alphabet game tiles using Open Source design software

Louise hates word games but loves Ancient Egypt. So it seemed perfectly natural to invent a more interesting version of letters for word games using Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs!

This also allowed me to try out two Open Source design software programs, Inkscape and Scribus.

We decided to design word tiles that could be printed off and then used in a variety of word games and crosswords.

Louise provided the Egyptology expertise. There are single consonant hieroglyphs that approximate a large number of our consonants. Vowels were an issue as no one really knew how the Ancient Egyptians actually spoke. We had a, e and o possibles. There was no i or u. The consonants l, q, v and x were also missing. However, we could include SH, TH and CH as individual letters.

By making rules for substitutions or workarounds for the missing letters, we came up with a practical solution.

The actual hieroglyph tiles were then designed in the vector graphic software Inkscape. I became very familiar with the generation of shapes, the importance of nodes and vertices and how to manipulate them to create the necessary shapes.

The designs were then exported individually both as scalable vector graphics and png files.

The basic instructions with printable tiles in PDF form were then put together using the desktop publishing software Scribus.

We cut printed and cut out the tiles for our very first word game and had great fun with the challenge of adapting the available letters to our english words.

Join in the fun by downloading the PDF from
http://issuu.com/miltoncontact/docs/egyptian-crossword-tiles
and trying out these tiles in a game of your own!

Chris Thomas, design and implementation
Louise Thomas, Egyptology consultant and games tester

Designing the new Milton Village View Logo

So how do you represent a village in 3 letters, in a small space of 207 x 80 pixels? That was the challenge of submitting a new logo for “Milton Village View” magazine. The old one that I had designed a couple of years ago was fine for print but did not reproduce well in a smaller web format.

It all started with pencil and paper. I prepared a couple of A4 sheets with lots of small boxes, in the ratio of 207 x 80. I roughly divided the sides into thirds (like a noughts and crosses grid) to give a structure to work with.

I had been asked to include the letters MVV, so now I started doodling. The angular letters gradually changed to curves in successive boxes. The letters M and both Vs seemed to work if at different sizes,  as did making the M asymmetric. The underlying grid served as a guide.

Trying to add additional detail or images behind the letters proved a dead end. However, circles in the valleys of the letters did give the impression of three figures with their arms in the air.

The next step was to go to a design software.  I chose to make a vector graphic – which could be scaled to any size.  Normally I would use CorelDraw. This time I tried Inkscape, an open source (free) program.

The recreated crisp logo shapes could now be coloured digitally. Milton has a surprising number of bridges – in the country park, by the river and over the A14. The curves of the M hinted at them.

Blue below one arc could represent lakes and rivers; green under the other suggested the park and village green spaces. The final use of orange behind a circle reflected sunrise.

The end result was unforeseen. It had evolved through the design process. It only remained to create bitmap and PDF versions of the logo for the magazine editors.

Milton Village View appears several times a year with news round and about Milton and will soon be on the web at http://mvv.org.uk

I hope you like the design. What other Milton features do YOU see in the logo?