Ryan Knapp—one of the men behind Buffalo’s soccer club FC Buffalo—got a hold of me from Kansas City in search of a logo for his new endeavor Miles to Go Endurance Co. The final design is something I really think depicts the concept of endurance and the never-stop attitude so many athletes cultivate.
I was told that the enterprise was to target the endurance lifestyle—running, biking, swimming—and took its name from a Robert Frost poem. In Ryan’s words:
Inspired by a stanza in the Robert Frost poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Miles to Go represents the dedication by each and every endurance athlete who hits the bike, gets in the pool, or attacks the trail no matter what. Miles to Go also reflects our promise to help grow the endurance community, one athlete at a time.
From there I tried to come up with ideas of iconography that could depict endurance. My initial brainstorm led me to lungs and the track (whether street or water). I drew a few different stylized depictions of lungs, utilizing the maze of nerve/veins/etc beneath the surface a la a BodyWorks exhibit I saw a few years back.
During the process of converting the lungs to a vector illustration on the computer, I began looking at typefaces as well as played with some concepts to mimic the ‘M’ of Miles as a track. From this came the infinity track design that would eventually evolve into what is the final logo above. Both showing an expanded ‘infinity 8’ and the ‘mi’ abbreviation of mile, the icon itself serves as a standalone depiction of the Miles to Go concept.
