A York Word Map – Celebrating a City
The Next Project : A York Word Map
Alison Hardcastle X O+M Snowhome
Created 10 years ago this year the typographic Word Maps I designed in collaboration with Snowhome when my first child was only very small (she’s now 12!) have long been a favourite in their shop and in my online shop.
The first in the series, The Word Map of the British Isles, was researched and created in 2011 by Snowhome founder Angus McArthur and myself to capture the diversity of a place in to a typographical representation of the British Isle’s map.
Ten years on from the creation of that first map and Snowhome itself is quite the design institution in the city. Now in it’s 20th birthday year (and one year on from the new owners Helen & Matt Harris’ move from Owl + Monkey in to Snowhome premises at 42 Gillygate – hence the new adage O+M Snowhome) it seems the right time to bring a new word map in to the family; the Word Map of York.
Why now?
At a time when many of us have spent more time at home than we could have imagined the Word Map of York will be a celebration of the city we call home, capturing the familiar favourites, natural spaces, community links and little known facts that sum-up the spirit of the city.
Kickstarting The Map
Above is a tiny snippet of words gathered as a ‘teaser’ of the map to come but Helen & Matt have a carefully researched long list of over 200 entries that could make up the final map and I’m poised with a tiny brush and bottle of Indian ink ready to begin the artwork! To bring the map to life O+M Snowhome are launching a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund support and raise the funds needed to commission myself to create the exclusive artwork and subsequently word map and associated products.
What is Kickstarter?
Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform that allows people to pledge to buy items in advance of their production to help raise the funds to make a range of creative projects possible. If a campaign is successful backers get to look forward to receiving their purchased item once production takes place. If the campaign isn’t successful and cannot go ahead backers don’t pay any money as the items don’t go in to production. It’s an all or nothing system, so for a project to be successful it needs to raise the full total of the funds required.
To make the reality O+M Snowhome need to raise £3000 which will allow them to commission myself, gain ownership of the artwork and bring the Word Map of York in to print. The time frame for this to happen is £3000 in 2 weeks.
Special Editions & Rewards
There will be opportunities to pledge to buy an exclusive colour way, early bird offers on both the Word Map of York and the Word Map of the British Isles as well as Word Map greetings cards hot off the press for the campaign.
There will also be ten limited edition screen prints of the Word Map of York. This is quite special indeed! Hand-printed by myself, each screen print will offer the opportunity to have the map made unique to you with one entry of your choice, perhaps a person, place or York event that means something to you, added to your map.
All the products produced will be available for dispatch in December ready for the Christmas gift season. You can even choose to have them wrapped and sent direct to recipients in the U.K.
The campaign has just launched and ends at midnight on 7th October. You can find out more about the the Word Map of York Kickstarter Campaign and follow the campaign as it progresses at :
https://www.snow-home.co.uk/awordmapofyork
I can’t wait to get started! You can see the process and progress if you follow us on Instagram