How To Design A New Stamp Cancel... Or Help Me Design One?

In our village I help run a farmers market. We were asked by the post master (mistress? office manager?) to come up with a special cancel she could have made for the market and use. Pretty cool. But how on earth would I do this?

What a cool project, Ross. You can have some fun with this.
First make sure to get all the perameters from your postal connection. Size, method of application, any limitations regarding amount of text, if any, etc.
Then I'd write down all you want to say on the cancel - try to keep it at a minimum if you can. Then if you want an image of some kind, you might take a walk around the market with a camera and snap a few pics. Once you are away from the hubbub of the place you will be able to focus on something in the pictures that will represent the market to you.
Fruit? Veg? Vendors? Tents? A landmark of some kind.
Then maybe you can find some who can create a line drawing of the image.
Remember, keep it fairly simple. You have a very small area, and probably only one colour to work in. It needs to be legible and look clean.
Less is more as they say.
Have fun. I look forward to what you folks can come up with.

If you really need help, feel free to drop me an email. I'm a graphic artist, and I'd be happy to help if I can. But give it a try yourself first. You might be surprised what you can come up with.
Good luck.

First do a search on E-BAY and down load a few scans of special events cancels .Make a reference source of what others done .Then have a contest thru the local high school art teachers .Make this a contest for students to make the EVENT CANCEL and all times keep the post master in the loop for the contest for the best student design and have the Mayor and Postmaster be the final judge .Your local newspaper will eat this up. Im sure others can come up with other ideas to make this a town event .

What is the name of the Village?

Here is some examples of Canadian special town cancels. I don't have close ups but as mentioned above a small image to represent area or occasion and limited text. Simple would be a rubber stamp that would mark a specific date but if being used more often you need the ability to change dates. Not sure how easy/complex it is to change up the new square date cancels most offices use . I would expect all this would need approval for a higher source so check all details before you put time and or money into the venture.

The village is North Gower, its part of Ottawa now. So North Gower Farmers' Market is a lot to print!

Thats a good thought Floortrader!

Nitro great examples. (I just used the ctl+ to see it better) I will check in with the post master again this week, it was a previous offer but I'm sure she'll be happy to see it happen still.

Not knowing the rules and regs- maybe it could be a specialty cancel used in conjunction with a regular date stamp. This way you could have a simple rubber stamp made that doesn't require date changes. Would be an honor to be behind something like that although I would put in fine print the stamp be returned to me after use.

Well the post office is paying for the creation so its their property, OR the Farmers' Market I would think. No?

wow that's an exciting project! I'll have to admit that I am kind of envious. Regardless of who pays for the stamp...just think it being left to posterity and having future generations discuss the significance of something you helped to design!

The only kink is at the upcoming market AGM I note there is a decided lack of nominations for directors to the board. New controversial bylaws are the reason and perhaps some personality clashing..... Here's hoping these can be resolved.

Has the Farmers Market said they WANT a cancellation and will allow their legal name to be used in the design?

You can make a slogan cancellation.

Doug yes they would like it,. just hasn't made a priority list partly because its a confusing project thats been hard to completely grasp. And man power is always at a premium.