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Floatzilla

Organization Name:
River Action Inc.
City & State:
, 
Describe your creative piece – what is it and what has it been used for, and why is it innovative?
This creative piece is the cover of an up and coming brochure to promote and register participants for “Floatzilla,” a brand new paddlesports festival being held in the Quad Cities in Illinois and Iowa on August 21, 2010. The artwork was generated using Adobe Illustrator CS4 – the font-based text was converted into scaleable vector objects and the illustrations were created from objects and gradient meshes. The “Floatzilla Eye” located on the right side of the brochure (and appearing as the project image) is the logo for Floatzilla and this particular graphic has been featured in magazine ads, newspapers, at trade shows, on the floatzilla.org website, on vinyl banners, shirts, bumper stickers, and even temporary tattoos. The mobility and appeal of this artwork in multiple mediums and formats (in whole and in part) demonstrates the benefits we have realized by designing digital vector graphics using Illustrator.
What issue or problem were you working to address with this piece?
Our primary challenge with Floatzilla is recruiting participants. Paddlesports are only just becoming a mainstream pastime in the Quad Cities and Floatzilla is the first paddlesports festival of its kind to be held in the area. We are setting the bar high and Floatzilla will showcase the new Quad Cities Water Trails on the Mississippi River, feature paddling lessons and family friendly camping opportunities, and culminate with a Guinness World RecordsTM sanctioned attempt to break the record for the world’s largest raft of canoes and kayaks. The current record is 1,104 and we are shooting for “2,010 in 2010.” Floatzilla has rightly been called an “audacious idea” and it is no secret that the concept of a paddlesports festival is novel and unfamiliar to most people living in the Quad Cities. This piece of art is the result of our belief that it was necessary to create eye-catching, recognizable, and easily reproducible artwork to promote Floatzilla and give it a fair chance to succeed.
How has your submission successfully impacted your organization’s ability to solve this issue/problem?
This artwork has become the face of Floatzilla. It has played a key role in helping us generate local grassroots support for the event and has set it apart from other paddlesports festivals. As news of Floatzilla has traveled throughout the Midwest via media outlets and magazines the Floatzilla Eye logo has led the way in the form of a teaser ad directing people to www.floatzilla.org. The combination of website traffic, event registrations, and word of mouth familiarity with Floatzilla and the Floatzilla Eye suggests we are not only generating support for the event but are achieving logo recognition. Though still early in our marketing campaign, the Floatzilla artwork has already piqued the curiosity of hundreds if not thousands of individuals. We expect our brochure will continue building this momentum.