Our hometown Los Angeles has a lot of notable landmarks, but the LA River is special to many local residents. So when the organizers for the LA River Half Marathon reached out for medal production and design, we knew we have an opportunity to pay homage to a local landmark.
The Design
The organizers have a rough idea of how they’d like the medal to look. It included the San Gabriel Mountains in the background, the California sun, and the historic bridges along the LA River – it looks like a nice concept on paper already! We sent one of our guys out to the trail and capture the real San Gabriel Mountains because no mountains are the same! With the pictures and the sketch our graphic department got right to work and created a mockup for the medal. The race colors are blue and yellow, but to give the title a little more pop we added glitter.
The Production
Once the mockup is approved we ran the design through our 3D-rendering software to show our clients a view of how the medal looks – especially the mountains. 3D renderings are especially useful when there is a lot of 3D elements and regular mockups are not able to show the details. This gives them a better idea how things will turn out. As usual we still make a production sample and as you can see, it looks pretty darn close to their original concept! In creating a medal that is true to the original idea it does take time, dedication, research and many emails! The end result is pretty awesome though, we were able to capture the spirit of the LA River and California history!
Do you need a great looking medal but don’t know where to start? Reach out and contact us today!