Clearwater Music Festival

Like its founder, Pete Seeger, the Hudson River-based festival has for years advocated environmentalism through music—passionately and crowd-pleasingly. Less pleasing? Its communications, which lacked the energy and vibe to grow the audience.

Using visual harmony to change up the tune.

Capturing the spirit of the festival was the key: glorifying music and nature in a single, celebratory refrain. So “Folk on the Water” was born—an integrated visual campaign in which the two were literally combined. On posters and postcards, mailers and MTA stops, an aerial view of the Hudson River was transformed, in vivid, Earth-loving blues and greens, into a guitar. The suggestion? In the big picture, it’s all interconnected. And man, is it beautiful.

It struck a chord—with audiences, and the world.

The campaign got the attention not only of music fans, but the design world, taking #1 globally in the How magazine International Poster Design Awards.