The climate crisis demands that we rethink the way we do nearly everything. In London, one of the key things we can do is rethink the way we get around. Switching from petrol and diesel vehicles to electric ones will help, but it’s far more effective if we can get away from our cars: switching from driving to active travel: cycling and walking!

London Cycling Campaign (LCC), which advocates to make cycling easier, safer and more fun, set up its Climate Safe Streets campaign to make sure politicians and the public knew what needed to be done, and how to do it.

At the end of 2020 they asked me to design their Climate Safe Streets Appeal, aiming to raise £20,000 to campaign to secure Climate Safe Streets by 2030 – particularly by applying pressure on candidates for the 2021 Mayoral elections. I designed leaflets, adverts and social media posts, which showed a bike appearing out of clouds of exhaust and pollution – becoming a happy bike. (Appropriately enough, the smiling bike logo is recycled from a previous LCC proposal, for Ealing Cycle Routes.)

On the back of the appeal, LCC is pushing forward with a full campaign. The first part of that is the Climate Safe Streets Champions – local volunteers who care deeply about climate and cycling and want to make sure their local borough councils do too. I designed a t-shirt with the Climate Safe Streets logo – with the smiling bike demonstrating the positivity and optimism of the campaign, and with an existing LCC tagline on the back: Action on Cycling = Action on Climate.

(See also: Climate Safe Streets: One Year On)