Branding and Wayfinding | SANPARKS

Rebranding And Wayfinding Design

- SANParks -

Brief

Designers are tasked with rebranding South African National Parks by creating a new logo, sub-logos for six specific parks, and an icon set for activities and conservation. The project aims to attract more tourists post-COVID-19 while respecting and staying true to its heritage and conservation values. Expected outcomes include a rebranded SANParks with a Corporate Identity and icon set, a Corporate Identity Manual, a Tourist Guide Booklet featuring six parks, promotional posters and leaflets, a Microsite, and a Wayfinding System with entrance and directional signage.

Grid Used to Create Logos and Visual Elements

SANParks' Main Logo Design

Context

The SANParks rebrand aims to align with sustainable conservation, emphasizing nature, heritage, and preservation. Targeting a broad audience, especially younger South African visitors, the concept centres around the "circle of life," showcasing the interconnectedness of all living beings in the ecosystem. Tourists play a vital role in this circle, actively contributing to the vitality and sustainability of SANParks ecosystems.

6 SANParks Sub-Logos

Client AND Audience

Established in 1898, SANParks National Parks oversees 19 protected sites, including Kruger National Park and Table Mountain National Park. With a focus on ecotourism and biodiversity conservation, SANParks targets South African tourists—retirees (60-80), travellers (20-60), and backpackers (20-30). The audience, middle to upper-class, seeks diverse travel experiences, sharing interests in nature, South Africa, relaxation, and continuous learning. Adventurous and open-minded, this demographic desires a meaningful connection with nature, visited places, and their home country.

SANParks Brand Style Guide

SANParks Brand Style Guide Details

SANParks Brand Style Guide Flip Book Link

Communication Goal

The communication goal is to promote SANParks as the ultimate destination for South African tourists seeking a profound and strengthening connection with nature through every visit.

Icon Set

Creative Statement

When visiting a place for the first time tourists tend to only focus on specific stuff that they have set their mind to in their research of the place, due to this they often miss some crucial things of nature that aren’t usually incorporated in online brochures. What they miss is the bigger picture and the fact that everything happens for a reason and is connected for a reason. In this unknowing ignorance, they are also part of that great circle, they are also part of the connection. The creative strategy for this project is to illuminate the interconnectedness of South African tourists with nature, encouraging them to see themselves as integral participants in the grand circle of the natural world.

SANParks Tourist Booklet

SANParks Tourist Booklet Details

Creative Concept

Life cycles of all species of plants, animals and birds are intertwined with each other meaning that everything is part of a bigger connection. The creative concept is to use the idea of interconnectedness, overlapping, similarities and touch points of the circle of life, to depict the human need to feel and be part of the connection and when visiting SANParks fall into your place in the all-revolving life cycle.

SANParks Microsite Screen

SANParks Microsite Navigation and Function

SANParks Microsite Function

Namaqua National Park Poster Series

Media and Visual Strategy

The design highlights the integration of geometric shapes, circular forms, and connecting elements for illustrations and logos, employing positive and negative space techniques. To refresh SANParks' established brand, a deeper green is introduced as the main colour, symbolizing nature and conservation. Futura, the primary typeface, blends modernity and timeless elegance for legible and cohesive branding. Catherova Regular and Octarine, used for display fonts, represent the circular concept. The circular grid forms the basis for illustrations, aligning with SANParks' new concept of the circle of life. Extracted shapes are used to create compositions depicting park flora and fauna, showcased in various illustrations throughout the park's marketing materials.