California Cleanup Day is an annual statewide event that enlists volunteers to spend one day cleaning up the coast. The California Coastal Commission wanted to call attention to the event.

While the California coastline is one of the more scenic places on earth, the garbage that is left on its beaches and inland waterways is a major problem.

Clearly, garbage doesn’t belong on our beaches and is harmful to California’s native species. This fact led to the strategy the creative team came up with: “Trash is a non-native species and must be removed.” To illustrate this, they created strange and slightly ominous creatures that represented the danger of different kinds of trash. The Cig Egret, the Oil Shark and the Spork Crab were a few examples. Making the creatures feel real was key in getting people to pay attention. The imagery had to be striking – it had to make people look twice. The posters and images are reminiscent of classic nature postcards and Audubon paintings, but on closer inspection, are a bit more twisted.

The event took place Saturday, September 17th, 2005. 48,250 volunteers picked up 871,361 pounds of trash and an additional 99,686 pounds of recyclable materials, for a total of 971,047pounds of debris. You can find out more at www.coastforyou.org