Appalachian Ohio Geospatial Data PartnershipLogo Design Contest

I am looking for something more abstract to compare against. I may like the cliché GIS logo of compass and globe better, but I’d like to see a concept that can be interpreted as “geographic data sharing in Appalachia”. Maybe a concept that indicates the coal mining past, rolling hills, and rivers morphing into advancements in technology.

Our data partnership deals with mapping, surveying, geography, GPS and databases. If you are familiar with Google Earth or Google Maps, we are the people that provide data to Google for their online maps. Our data is used in the type of maps you see in a Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan GPS units. One of the most prominent companies in our field is Esri (www.esri.com).

The region we represent is Southeastern Ohio, which is generally referred to as Appalachian Ohio.

I know that the title has a LOT of words to get in there, which may be scaring away some designers! Due to the number of words, the layout of this text is quite important. Take a look at this image:

http://floodpartnership.org/images/background.gif
Their title is about the same length as ours. Note how "Flood Mitigation" stands out.

If you used a similar text sizing for our logo, it could look nice. For example:
NORTHWEST OHIO = APPALACHIAN OHIO (smallest text)
FLOOD MITIGATION = GEOSPATIAL DATA (largest text)
PARTNERSHIP = PARTNERSHIP (this part might look better being a little smaller in our logo)

(NOTE: These words don't all need to be in caps... I just did that to compare the two logo texts.)

Please give it a shot, and keep the good designs coming! :)