Santa Cruz Mermaid - High-quality, iron-on embroidered patch. [Red]
Iron-on or sew onto your jacket, backpack and more.
Top of the line threading. These patches really pop! (5 x 3.5" )
Made In Santa Cruz® is an authorized dealer of Tim Ward stickers, key chains, magnets, patches, and pins.
Santa Cruz has undoubtedly embraced Tim Ward's art as a symbol of pride for their hometown, and many guests and visitors to Santa Cruz agree. As an accomplished artist, illustrator and graphic designer, Northern California native Tim Ward is among the vanguard in Santa Cruz art. In much of his painting and drawing work, Ward strives to share the serenity and the beauty of the ocean and sky. These images are striking and subtle all at once.
What you may not know about Tim Ward's
stickers, magnets, patches, keychains and pins is that a portion of the
proceeds fund Ocean Conservation, Education and more! As of 2015, over
$25,000 has been donated and the next big goal will be $100,000. So buy a
Tim Ward sticker and feel good knowing it's for a good cause.
ABOUT THE ARTIST - TIM WARD
These
hugely popular stickers are the work of Santa Cruz graphic artist Tim
Ward and if you don't recognize the name, you surely recognize the
artwork. There's the Mermaid and the Butterfly, the Shark and the
Starfish, the Wave and the Otter.
Santa Cruz is one of the few cities able to market its own name as a kind of attractive totem for locals and tourists alike.
"Santa
Cruz is unique," said Ward, 45, who was born in San Francisco but moved
to Santa Cruz as a boy with his family. "There's a lot of local pride
here and a desire to identify yourself with your home."
Logos and
branding are Ward's business, and even before launching his line of
Santa Cruz stickers, he put his stamp on local iconography with his
well-known logos for Santa Cruz Surf Shop "" a continuous swirl that
spells out "SC" in a triangular field that resembles Superman's symbol
"" and Paradise Surf Shop "" the silhouette of a long-haired woman
riding a wave against the backdrop of an upside-down teardrop.
Of
course, the Santa Cruz stickers are not advertising a particular
business. They are instead evoking a kind of emotional state associated
with living in, or just visiting, Santa Cruz. The stickers are designed
to connect Santa Cruz with specific icons of the area, many of those
icons having to do with the natural world, particularly the ocean.
"Santa Cruz is absurdly full of good qualities," said Ward.
Ward
sets aside a portion of his profits from the stickers for environmental
causes having to do with the particular symbols he's working with. The
popular Butterfly sticker, for example, raises money for the California
State Parks system, which administers Natural Bridges State Beach, which
is a famous migration spot for the monarch butterfly.
Proceeds
from the sale of other stickers such as the Otter, the Mermaid and other
ocean-oriented images go to marine preservation, mainly the Surfrider
Foundation and the Blue Dolphin Alliance. Some local school programs
also benefit from the sale of the stickers.
The ocean is a
particular area of interest for Ward, a longtime surfer who started
surfing with his father at Cowell Beach at age 12. "You really can't get
much more aesthetically pleasing than the ocean. The planet is full of
beautiful things, but the ocean itself is a massive kind of life form,
and it's always in motion."
A few years ago, Ward produced what
was to become his first Santa Cruz sticker, the Shark. Because he had
developed strong relationships with local retailers as both a designer
and a screen printer, he was able to create a line of stickers and the
Shark became the first big-seller.
The stickers are an increasingly common sight on cars around the county, but they aren't just for locals.
Article by Wallace Baine, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 10/27/11.
Made In Santa Cruz®