One Show map symbol competition winners

If you were watching the One Show on 1 July, you’ll have seen our six fantastic new map symbols being unveiled

2 minute read
On a very special episode of The One Show, 1 July 2015, six fantastic new map symbols were unveiled. There was a competition launched in May 2015, and OS (and the One Show) were overwhelmed to have over 7,000 entries pouring in for the 10 map symbols that were up for design.

We were thrilled with the number of people getting involved and loved all of the people sharing their entries with us on Twitter – especially all of the schools that were up for the map symbol design challenge.

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Judgement day

Filming for the judging took place mid- June, but the team at OS had already been busily sorting through the entrants and creating a shortlist of 10 symbols from the 10 categories ahead of that. The judging panel included cartographers, designers and product managers who had a list of criteria in mind:

  • Designs needed to work alongside the current symbols.
  • Must be scaleable – the map symbols on our OS Explorer maps are roughly 5 mm
  • Need to be shown in a single, solid colour when they appear on the maps, so couldn’t rely on lots of colour.
  • Resemblance or convention – most of our map symbols are pictorial and either look like the feature they’re depicting or use a well-known convention.
People choosing the icons at Ordnance Survey HQ
The shortlisted entries displayed in our atrium

After much debate, six winning symbols were selected – congratulations to the winners! Take a look at their entries (shown on the left) and the final map symbol design below (shown on the right). As you’ll see, we’ve kept changes to a minimum, but our design team made some tweaks to make the symbols visible and usable on our maps.

The six winning map symbols

New icon for Gallery
Jamie Norris is the winner for the art gallery map symbol. Jamie is an Industrial Designer and found designing the logos a nice break from his daily routine
New icon for electric car charging point
Summer Nasim designed the new electric car charging point map symbol. Summer also featured in The One Show filming at our head office
New icon for skate parks
Rebecca Thomas was the winner for the new skate park map symbol. As a Cub Scout Leader, teaching map reading and navigation, it was the perfect competition to get involved in
New icon for solar farms
Clare Nichols designed the new solar farm map symbol. Living on a farm in Gloucestershire, and seeing several solar farms cropping up nearby, inspired Clare to get designing
New icon for kite surfing
The new kite surfing map symbol was designed by Chris Lawson. Chris is an OS map fan and tells us he’s very proud to have created something that will appear on our products
New icon for public toilets
Will Chiu has helped us get a toilet symbol on the map, to replace the outdated ‘PC’ symbol we currently use. Currently studying graphic design, this competition was right up Will’s street

Putting the symbols on the map

You can see all of the symbols on our interactive map here right now.

We worked hard to get the new symbols rolled out to the relevant maps, with the first release being our Tour Maps in February 2016.

Ordnance Survey would like to say thanks again to everyone who entered, and sharing your creative skills with us!

By Press Office

Sharing the latest news about OS. We can license you to use OS maps in print, online and film format. For more information and resources for journalists, bloggers and media professionals, email pressoffice@os.uk or call 023 8005 5565.

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