The brand new look of the San Diego Zoo is a love letter to the animal kingdom
The origins of the San Diego Zoo go back to 1915 when founder Dr. According to legend, Harry Wegeforth drove past an animal menagerie that had been abandoned after the Panama California Exhibition and heard the roar of a lion named Rex.
Today, the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park are two of the largest zoos in the world, and Rex the lion lives on in the form of the Rex & # 39; s Roar statue that greets visitors at the entrance.
Together, the zoo and safari park are home to more than 15,000 rare and endangered animals, are part of a non-profit conservation organization that works to save species worldwide, and have one of the largest zoological member associations in the world with more than half a million members.
Last updated over a decade ago, the zoo's former identity treated its San Diego Zoo Global nonprofit, the San Diego Zoo, and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park as separate brands with their own visual systems.
Michael Bierut and his team at Pentagram were tasked with creating a new brand identity that could reach the broadest possible audience – from the families who visit and support the zoo and safari park to the scientists who contribute to his research.
Creating a new name for the zoo was the first step in a two-year collaboration between Pentagram and the parent organization, renamed the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA).
Bierut needed a more coherent brand architecture to stand alongside the renamed organization and created a new logo to reflect centuries of efforts to maintain the brand.
The redesigned brand brings together three animals that are important to the history of the SDZWA: Rex the lion; a California condor, a species brought back from the brink of extinction, as the organization's signature; and a white rhinoceros currently undergoing one of the most successful managed breeding programs in the world.
Combined as part of a single circular mark, the three individual animal images play with positive and negative space as an allusion to the interdependence of all living beings on the planet.
Continuing on this theme, the use of positive-negative space hints at the continuing threat of extinction in a number of Saving Species Worldwide posters that show animal illustrations in silhouette.
The logo is combined with the typography of GT Classic, a new font from Grilli Type, with letterforms that have animal characteristics such as dives and sharp spurs.
The identity also extends to a system of sub-brands for the various components of the organization, which are further differentiated by a color palette with animal motifs. These include Habitat Green for Allianz's main brand, as well as Bumblebee Yellow, Macaw Red and Elephant Gray.
pentagram.com