Gowalla Grand Rapids

Happy beta release day to Gowalla 2.0! I made this icon last year as personal exercise I had to see what my own city of Grand Rapids, MI might look like on their upcoming leaderboard style.

The glyph is based on Alexander Calder’s “La Grande Vitesse,” a big sheet metal sculpture in a plaza outside our city hall. It’s glorious to see in person, and the city’s really taken to it. We’ve even got an abstracted version in our logo and city flag.