The Shipping Forecast is celebrating its centenary.

I’ve always loved this very British “accidental slice of nonsense poetry”

About 15 years ago, I did a little project to make a ‘rosary’ for what is often referred to as a ‘secular prayer’.

Each of the forecast’s regions are represented in laser-cut marine plywood, and strung – in the order of the broadcast – to be thumbed through as you listen.

It was a very quick idea but I’ve always loved it – and it seemed to resonate with a few folks.

Perhaps I’ll re-issue it for the centenary over at http://magpieprint.works?

I also did another quick Shipping Forecast inspired piece for a newspaper the now-defunct cycling brand Vulpine put out back in 2013.

This attempted to create alternate coastlines from the shipping forecast areas.

I’m less happy with the execution here, but it’s still a fun idea. Might be more satisfying as something playable, generative – perhaps it has a future as a code experiment with an LLM’s assistance…

However – my favourite Shipping Forecast associated project is Matt Brown’s beautifully simple and evocative typography piece that still has pride of place on the wall.