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I've designed several booklets while I was in college. Although I was really proud of each of those projects, there's only so many people who actually get to see all of your hard work...a.k.a. professors, classmates, and parents. So being the graphic designer of the RACVB's brand new Rockford Region Go Guide is a big deal for me because not only will my coworkers (and parents) see it, but hopefully so will the rest of the Rockford region and beyond!
The new guide is really a collaboration between the entire RACVB marketing department and some amazing photographers. It's no small feat to gather everything great about Rockford and pack it all into a little 44 page book! To give you a little behind-the-scenes look into the guide, here are a few fun facts about the guide you might not know just by flipping through it:
Pizza Party
In the Where to Dine section, there is a whole page dedicated to pizza in Rockford. What you might not know is that the photo of the slices of pizza is one photo, not individual slices photoshopped together! Yes, we ordered 6 pizzas from 6 different restaurants to get this photo. Trust me, it was a very delicious afternoon. What you also might not know is that each slice has different toppings! (My own personal touch was the Hawaiian pizza slice because it is my husband and my favorite pizza topping.)
Hodge Podge Sports
One of the pages in the Where to Bring Your Game section includes a photo of several different sports items insides a locker. Fun fact: Those items are actually inside one of the lockers in the Rockford IceHogs locker room at the BMO Harris Bank Center! The skates, hockey stick and pucks all came from the IceHogs, but the rest of the items all came from various members of the RACVB marketing team. My contribution was the IceHogs sweater...which belongs to my husband!
Staying Local
The entire Go Guide features the places and people that make the Rockford region amazing, so it only makes sense that the whole production of the guide is local as well! The photography used in the guide was either provided by the attraction itself, or taken by a local photographer. One of our main photographers was actually a previous summer intern at the RACVB, Tyler Yomantas! (If you like the large skateboarding photo in the Where to Shop section or the photo from the rock concert at the Coronado in the Where to Entertain section, you can thank him.) Once the book was ready to go, we had it printed by a local printer right here in downtown Rockford. From the content to the guide creation, this guide is Rockford-focused!
I hope you take some time to grab a guide and flip through it! It's also available online as a PDF you can download for your convenience!
