2008 Year in Review

Logo an Important Part of Paint the Town

Each year, the Children’s Art Preservation Association, along with a graphic designer, creates a unique logo for Paint the Town, incorporating several different meanings into one symbol for the event.

For this year’s Paint the Town on Saturday, Sept. 20, PTT chairwoman Barb Bees said the committee wanted the logo to involve the Dutch Golden Age painting era because of the area’s strong Dutch heritage.

After brainstorming, the committee sent ideas to Jeff VanEchaute, owner of Pi Design in the Quad Cities, who also designed the 2007 Paint the Town logo. Using the committee’s suggestions, VanEchaute created a logo that captures the spirit of the event, according to Bees. With the sentiment, “Every Square is a Masterpiece!” arching atop the logo, Bees said the 2008 logo shows how important the participants are to the event and to the committee.

“To us, [the squares] are famous works of art,” she said. “Whether the artists are 2 or 82, they are creating their own masterpiece.”

All the artists, volunteers and sponsors receive t-shirts with the logo, but each group receives a different color shirt to make them feel appreciated and special. The sponsor and volunteer shirts also are labeled as such on the backs of the shirts.

In all, more than 2,200 shirts will be printed for the 2008 Paint the Town event. Marathon Sports Wear in Chicago prints the shirts the week of the event, and they arrive in Morrison roughly 2-3 days prior to the event.

Bees said due to the quantity of the shirts and the time frame they’re needed in, the committee was forced to take the business out-of-town.

“If we see we’re low in a particular size, we can call [Marathon], and in two days, we’ve got more shirts,” Bees said. “Nobody goes away with a shirt size they don’t want.”

With each Paint the Town having a unique shirt, Bees said the shirts have become a very popular aspect of Paint the Town, with artists of all ages continuing to wear their shirts year after year. Bees added that the shirts often are passed down to younger siblings as well.

With the growing popularity of the shirts and the event, the logo has continued to evolve since the inception of Paint the Town. What began as a simple logo, with only one or two colors, now has morphed into a masterpiece in its own right, incorporating several different colors into a sophisticated logo that projects the best image of Paint the Town possible.

Paint the Town would not be possible without its sponsors. The 2008 Paint the Town sponsors include:
Exelon; Fitzgerald Pharmacy; CGH; Wells Fargo Bank; Sterling Gazette; Clinton Herald; City of Morrison; Altronic Coils; American Piping Group; American Products; Baxter and Woodman, Consulting Engineers; Blackhawk Lumber; Community State Bank; Dairy Queen; Farmers National Bank; Happy Joe’s; Kohl’s; Law Office of William R. Shirk; 3M; Medical Associates; Moring Disposal; Pi Design, Inc.; P&P Tool; Subway; Dr. William Simpson; Super Wash, Inc.; THE National Bank; Waste Management; WSDR, WZZT, WSSQ Radio.
A+ Self Storage; Climco Coils Company; Coplan & Buckwalter, PC; Karen Bramm Insurance; Ken Kophamer Realty; Law Office of Lester Weinstine; Mickley Insurance; Morrison True Value Hardware; Morrison Unit District 6; Pignatelli & Mertes, PC; Pop Graphics; Shawver Press; Sterling Federal Bank; Tegeler Accounting; US Cellular; Whiteside New Sentinel
Nelson, Kilgus, Richey, Huffman, and Buckwalter- Schurman; Northwestern Title; RC Smith/Scenic Stage Line

by  Editor, theCity1.com
September 4, 2008