Route Guide
Designing an award-winning Ekiden route guide
FT NIKKEI UK EKIDEN
Discovering Ekiden
When we came across the tradition of Ekiden, a long-distance relay race held annually in Japan, we knew it was something we’d love to get involved in. Having first made its way to the UK in 2024, we’ve been proud to support both Year 2 and Year 3 of the FT Nikkei UK Ekiden, designing the route guide for the 2025 and 2026 events.
The project has allowed us to combine our love of maps and information design with our love of running and community spirit. Read on to discover how we brought our design thinking from studio to starting line.
The project has allowed us to combine our love of maps and information design with our love of running and community spirit. Read on to discover how we brought our design thinking from studio to starting line.
Finding our place in Ekiden
Our Ekiden story
Our Managing Director, Oliver Tomlinson, first discovered Ekiden through Adharanand Finn’s book The Way of the Runner. Curious to learn more, he spoke with TDL Senior Designer and Japanese national, Tomoko Furukawa, who explained how Ekiden is a cherished tradition in Japan.
Rooted in historic messenger routes, it celebrates teamwork, pacing, and shared effort, with runners passing a sash (tasuki) rather than a baton.
"It was a nice opportunity for us to not just use our design skills, but also work on something we really cared about."
Oliver Tomlinson
General Manager at TDL APAC
When Ekiden launched in the UK, Oliver put out a LinkedIn call for a corporate team, even catching Finn’s attention. Although assembling a running team proved challenging, we realised we could contribute in another way: through design.
After speaking with Anna Dingley, founder of UK Ekiden, we created an engaging Route Guide featuring sports graphics that bring the 114km Thames Path course between Windsor and Reading to life. With Tomoko’s personal connection and Designer (and keen runner) Nelly Bridger Morales involved, it felt like a natural fit.
Behind the guide
Mapping the race
To create the Route Guide, we immersed ourselves in both the traditions of Ekiden and the realities of the UK race. The 114km Thames Path route presented a particular challenge: it travelled out and back rather than in a simple loop, while serving two audiences with very different needs. Participants wanted detailed information about their individual legs, while spectators needed to understand the event as a whole.
Working from GPX data and mapping tools, we developed editable elevation profiles and simplified schematic maps for each leg, helping runners quickly compare terrain, distance, and handover points. Every design decision was guided by clarity, from colour-coding outbound and return routes to carefully directing the reader’s eye through a map that ran counter to conventional left-to-right expectations. The result was a guide that made a complex event easier to understand and navigate.
“The superb Route Guide design helped convey how much work and preparation had gone into the race itself, as well as being a clear and concise way of giving people the information they needed.”
Post-event success
Award-winnning design
Since then, the Route Guide has received further recognition, winning a 2026 International Institute for Information Design (IIID) Award in the Didactics category. For us, the award reflects what the project was always about: transforming complexity into understanding.
What began with a book recommendation and a curiosity about a Japanese running tradition evolved into an award-winning piece of communication design that connected cultures, supported participants, and helped bring an ambitious event to life.
