"Hard Rock. Hard Tech. Hard Core"
Thriving in the Global Economy from the Middle of Nowhere
This is the story of how we joined forces with Jeremy Parriot (of BFE Films at that time), Steve Nantz of the Moab 4x4 Outpost, Ann Gordon of Gordon Computer, and other local Moab, Utah professionals, to write and illustrate a marketing insert article about the local advanced technology companies that were members of the Utah Smart Site program. The article was published in Money Matters magazine in December of 2004. The highlight was Jeremy's digitially-designed extreme rock crawler buggy. What a ride!
Utah Smart Site Assignment
Circuit Riders was originally located in Moab, Utah, from 2003-2007, and during that time we were recognized by the state as a Utah Smart Site. (The Smart Site program was developed to encourage Utah rural economic development.) In December 2004 we were contacted by the program directors for emergency help with an advertising insert article they had paid for to appear in "Money Matters" magazine. The original writer and photographer had not returned their calls, and they'd already paid a substantial sum for the space. They needed a cover image for the article insert, a 1200 word article describing the Smart Sites of Grand County, plus 2 additional images to illustrate the article.
A Tight Deadline
They needed all of it in less than a week.
We gave them what they asked for, and hit the deadline with time to spare. Here's how:
We immediately called several of the local Smart Site technical professionals to work with us on the project, in order to share the opportunity for exposure and to show what we could accomplish as a group under tight deadline pressure. Ann Gordon and I began collating the Grand County Smart Site company descriptions into a quick article.
The hard part was the illustrations. The magazine's graphic director asked me for images of digital high tech that were "Different please! No glass buildings. No pictures of computers, mice, monitors, tangled electric cords, or any other hardware. And no stock photos of happy corporate computer users in suits."
First, a local photographer, Bruce Hucko, generously donated one of his landscape images of the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park to use as the insert cover photograph:
Fig. 2 – Insert Cover Page Photo by Bruce Hucko
Next, we found a suitable photograph to use for the title page, a picture I'd taken at sunset while hiking down the main wash of Salt Valley in Arches National Park. (Fig. 1 above)
For the last image, I wanted to show someone using advanced digital technology in a desert wilderness setting. I contacted Jeremy about the possibility of highlighting his new rock crawler buggy in the photograph, because I knew they'd done the design using AutoCAD and SolidWorks with great success. He set up the shoot with Steve Nantz of the Moab 4x4 Outpost doing his test drive.
The light was perfect, and the magazine's graphic director was thrilled with the results:
Fig. 3 – Jeremy Parriott of BFE Films (l.) and an assistant shooting Steve Nantz of the Moab 4x4 Outpost, testing their digitally engineered rock crawler buggy at the Johnson's Proving Grounds cliffs south of Moab. Photo by Mary Ecsedy.
top