California Dragon Boat Association

The California Dragon Boat Association is a volunteer-run 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to promoting low cost community sports and exercise for adults and youth across Northern California. There are local races through the year, culminating in a large international festival in the Fall where over 2,000 competitors compete at various levels and tens of thousands attend to watch and engage in the festivities. Since 1997, Jimmy Chan has been a designer for the organization and the festival. Many youth and adult teams have been named and branded by him. The festival has many components: merchandising, posters, program books, banners, out of home advertisements, medals, gifts, photography, and boat branding.

For 2018, I came up with a design that was Californian yet spoke of roots in East Asia, similar to the local dragon boat scene. Finger wave patterns were illustrated to resemble cloisonné and inserted into the state bear flag.

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Various medals from past years. From left to right: 1. Finger wave design. 2. For the first year the International Festival was held in Oakland, I used local icons in the design—the notorious Lake Merritt Canada goose is on the medal. 3. Bilingual wordplay, the number "20" is in Chinese calligraphy (二十) and Hindu–Arabic numerals. 4. A dragon boat cable car was designed for the 15th anniversary.

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