Brand Identity for Zoo Oliwa in Gdańsk, Poland.
Zoo Oliwa was officially opened in 1954 at the pre-war health spa site within the area of Tricity Landscape Park. That beautiful location, with its hills covered with beech trees and water springs in the valleys, brings the undeniable opportunity to admire exotic animals while walking in nature.
This project was started as a team work of three designers but never realized due to withdrawal of funding by the City Council. Because of the amount of work and my personal effort dedicated to all these ink drawings and ideas I decided to finish it for my own personal purpose.
Approach, Survey and Interesting Work Experience.
It was indicated by the ZOO Oliwa management that the main target group were mothers with children ( 5-11 year old). We decided to create a survey with simple questions and pictures to get know the expectations and general taste of that target group. For this purpose we visited a few kindergartens and children playgrounds. We found out that a figurative logo depicting animal is better welcomed rather than an abstract logo. The result of the survey showed that children more likely tended to choose for a sign/logo which resembled something easy to identify. The outcome was for us somehow predictable when it comes to children but to our surprise the same pattern applied also for the mothers. It was quite interesting to work with children. We had to change the approach and develop a special language to involve children in the survey. How do you ask a 5 year old which logo do they like? That question was obviously too abstract, therefore it had to be changed into something that sounded more like: which pictures would you like to take home and show to your mom?
Idea Description
We described the style intended for this design as natural, funny and close to local scenery. I chose a traditional way of illustration. I took a nib pen, ink and paper and started to draw animals. I sketch a lot, for many years, probably from my early childhood so it became for me a natural and favorite way of expression. For the main symbol we picked a zebra. We decided to use various animal icons which could be used interchangeably on business cards, tickets, bags and t-shirts. To add some fun and bring visitors' attention and curiosity I designed posters with simple phrases: Do crocodiles really cry? What's inside a camel hump? How heavy is an elephant?
Thinking about a perfect color palette for my design I got inspired by the local nature. Zoo Oliwa is situated in Tricity Landscape Park with characteristic for this area beech forests. In autumn beech leaves change their color which creates breathtaking scenery of hills covered with yellow, orange and scarlet trees. This recurrent natural phenomenon was a great resource for me to find the right color combination.
