The charity Cambridge Cycling Campaign has launched a new identity which uses the colour ‘Dutch Orange’ to highlight its efforts to get more people on bikes in the city and improve conditions for them. It also says it will be making more use of the shortened name, CamCycle, that it employs already on social media.
It says the colour orange has been chosen in recognition of the status of the Netherlands as a country that leads the way when it comes to provision for cyclists and the design and implementation of world class infrastructure.
It will be used in a speech bubble, highlighting that the campaign group speaks for Cambridge’s cyclists, and is also complemented by ‘Aggregate Red,’ symbolising the colour used for the surface of the city’s latest cycle lanes.
The speech bubble and colours will be used in conjunction with the silhouette of a ‘hero cycle’ – a Dutch-style bike is shown in the example above – with the group’s chair, Robin Heydon, acknowledging that people’s perception of what constituted one could vary.
“As we know, a ‘hero cycle’ means something different to each individual,” he said. “For this reason, we plan to capture the real diversity of Cambridge’s cyclists by rotating through ‘hero cycles’: a town bike, a racer, a kid’s bike, a fixie, a folding bike, a tandem and more.
“We want our members to tell us what hero cycles they think we should use,” he added.
Unveiling its new identity, Cambridge Cycling Campaign said: “In its essence, the new brand is about strong imagery that evokes the incredibly diverse cycling culture in Cambridge.
“It would be placed with beautiful photos of members’ own cycles, or alongside inspiring Cambridge locations. The plan is for photographers, designers and artists to also take the concept and create playful new uses of the brand.”
It added: “There will also be stronger use of the name "Camcycle" by which the organisation is already known due to the popular Twitter account and which will help to avoid confusion with various other organisations abbreviated to CCC.”
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.