Fans of Oregon state parks may soon be able to wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Portland illustrator Kevin M. Fitzgerald spent a year designing a different badge for 53 different state parks in Oregon, giving each a smart and simple look that together encapsulate the beautiful and diverse nature of our state park system.
Now he and local marketing agency Mission Expedition are looking for $2,400 to fund an initial run of the badges, which they'll print and sell to the public in the form of stickers and sew-on patches.
"It's really exciting," Fitzgerald said. "Now that I have these I want to get them made. I want to get them in peoples' hands or on their backpacks."
Seeing his badges in physical form is a big accomplishment for the local illustrator, who spent more than a year on the designs. He first got the idea from a similar project in Pennsylvania, then gave it his own Pacific Northwest twist.
The project, now known as Patchmarks, has already talked to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, but were told they'd be better off pursuing it on their own for now.
Patchmarks is trying to fund the initial run of five patches via Kickstarter, where it quickly found success. After two days, the project had 35 backers and $1,223 - just more than half of its goal.
If successful, Patchmarks will eventually print all 53 badges, encouraging park visitors to collect them all as they tour Oregon's sprawling state park system.
There are actually about 250 state park properties in Oregon, but for the sake of maintaining sanity, Fitzgerald limited his project to the 53 that are considered "state parks" and not "state recreation areas" or "state scenic byways," for example.
That left out a lot of parks that would make great badges, the illustrator admitted - places like Crown Point, Tryon Creek and Kam Wah Chung - but if it proves to be popular, there could be room for expansion in the future.
"This is potentially much bigger than this set of 53," Woody Adams, a Mission Expedition producer, said. "But that's way down the line."
For now they're going to focus on the first run of five badges, then see where things go from there. The initial reaction has been positive, but it's anyone's guess how high the idea will really fly.
Patchmarks can rely on at least one enthusiastic fan, however: Seth Miller, executive director of the Oregon State Parks Foundation. He hadn't heard of Patchmarks yet, but was quick to endorse the idea.
"This looks like a cool project!," Miller wrote in an email. "We support anything like this that helps people share their love of Oregon's more than 260 wonderful state parks!"
Wear that love on your sleeves, Oregon - or your backpacks, water bottles, bike helmets or cars.
--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB