Tag Archives: logo

SotM 2021 Website and Logo! Thank you!

The State of the Map Working Group is grateful to everyone who submitted a logo as part of Call for SotM 2021 logos.

In total, we received 20+ submissions with outstanding and inspiring graphic designs, but we can only have one logo as the face of SotM 2021.

Congratulations to Julie Mattelaer for submitting the winning logo!

Contours, Julie Mattelaer (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

As you might already know, the SotM branding, website, stickers, T-shirts, is highly inspired by the colours of the logo. So, it’s time to launch the official website for State of the Map 2021!

Take a virtual tour of our home on the internet for SotM 2021, a place where you will find all the useful information about the conference, its deadlines for applications and main communication channels to stay updated about the next steps of the organisation.

State of the Map 2021 website

Thanks to all the creative minds that participated in the contest and shared with the community their original idea about the spirit of this year’s global conference!

State of the Map Working Group

Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, and you can support it by becoming a member. The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is an international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

Call for State of the Map 2021 logo designs

In 2020, we held the first ever online State of the Map conference! In July this year, State of the Map 2021 (SotM 2021) will also take place as a virtual conference (dates to be officially announced in mid-February).

The face of every SotM is, of course, its logo; a recognizable graphical element that represents the spirit and mood of that year’s global conference. For this reason, we need the help of the most creative minds in the community to create a new logo for SotM 2021!

The logo is also a crucial element for defining the design and colors of the official SotM website as well as the style of the conference content on all OSM platforms. It will also be used for the beloved SotM merchandise and swag (t-shirts, stickers, etc), making the best memories from the conference unforgettable.

From experienced professionals to graphic design newbies and enthusiasts, everyone can participate and share an original idea with the community!

Contest guidelines

The logo design should:

be an original artwork
refer to OpenStreetMap (OSM), and virtual State of the Map (SotM)
focus on the sense of global community and its core values;
be easily recognizable
open licence: CC BY SA or related
be submitted by Sunday, 14 February 2021 23:59 UTC

How to enter

Please submit your logo proposal via email to sotm@openstreetmap.org, attaching the design file in a PNG format and scalable file format (like PDF or SVG).

Winner selection

The submitted artworks will be reviewed by the SotM working group, and the winning logo will be decided via vote. The official logo will then be announced after the SotM meeting in mid-February.

Looking for some inspiration?

Take a look at the logos from the past SotMs. If you have any questions about the call, feel free to contact the State of the Map Working Group sotm@openstreetmap.org.

Do you want to translate this and other blogposts in your language..? Please send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.

A new logo for JOSM, the Java OpenStreetMap Editor

JOSM developers have been running a logo design contest these past few months, and a few days ago they announced a winner. Here’s the brand new logo for JOSM:

Congratulations to Diamond00744 on a great design!

What is JOSM?

JOSM is the “Java OpenStreetMap Editor”. It’s one of several software options you can choose to make edits to OpenStreetMap. The other popular choice is to edit by simply clicking the “edit” button on the website. This is the “iD” editor. By contrast JOSM must be downloaded. It will run as a separate application on your desktop.

Here is Tordanik’s summary of “the benefits of working with JOSM“:

Efficiency: edit faster with well thought-out keyboard shortcuts, a powerful search function, filters to hide data you don’t want to edit, and the largest available selection of editing tools of all editors
Validation: make sure your data is clean before you upload by using the built-in validator
Offline editing: save your partially completed work locally, work with your private GPS tracks or photographs without having to upload them
Customization: customize keyboard shortcuts, pick from high-quality plugins for specialized tasks, enable UI dialogs for experimental features, change how the editor’s map rendering looks
Cutting-edge mapping: get tool support for emerging mapping topics like lane mapping or 3D mapping

There’s disadvantages too of course. Your choice of editor may come down to personal preference. In general iD is designed as a beginner friendly easier experience for our new users on the website, while JOSM is more feature-rich and popular among experienced mappers. This is reflected in the stats which Oli Wan has been maintaining on the ‘Editor usage stats’ wiki page . He observes that JOSM users are responsible for doing the most editing, despite “iD” reaching the largest number of users.

So if you’ve only tried the “iD” editor, and those advantages sound interesting then maybe you should give JOSM a try. There are various guides and tutorials to help you learn, including the JOSM Guide on the wiki and LearnOSM.org , but firstly download JOSM from josm.openstreetmap.de (It’s lovely new logo is now part of the download as of version 7777) The JOSM website also has the issue tracker and code repository.

New OpenStreetMap Logo

By Ken Vermette cc by sa

Have you noticed the awesome revamp of the OpenStreetMap logo?

The logo was created by Ken Vermette, who was kind enough to answer a few questions about his design.

“I made the logo a few months ago when I first found out about OpenStreetMap, I’ve always been a supporter of open projects; I can’t afford to donate, and outside of PHP I can’t really program, so I do odd graphics instead when I have extra time. I don’t think it was 2 hours after discovering OSM that I had started sketching designs. Ultimately, I just really liked the original logo so I didn’t change the design and aimed to try remastering it.

I was actually quite surprised about it being used [as the new logo] – I had posted my work to the OSM lists, and I thought it had been declined or forgotten. While sitting on the logo the question came in asking if it was creative-commons licensed, which it was, and next thing I knew it was on the website!

I need to admit I’m quite humbled, so much work has been put into OpenStreetMap it staggers you once you realize the scope of the project. People ride their bikes, plot trees, point out parks and define roads to make this work. It always pains me when someone looks at an open source project and rules it out because it’s “unattractive”, especially when it’s such a great project. I want to keep refining the logo to be on par with the effort put into OSM, so people could see it for the incredible resource that it is; I could never do it though, I’d be working forever!

Anyway, I’m just glad that I could help out – I’d really like to thank every OSM mapper and contributor out there, drawing an icon seems dwarfed compared to the effort of mapping the world.”

Ken, we thank you for your contribution to OpenStreetMap. We all know it isn’t just any logo. 🙂

What is JOSM?

OpenStreetMap Blog