Making a splash for Humbolt Penguins
Friday, October 9th, 2009
Though we’re known for our business-savvy solutions, sometimes a project comes along that is just plain fun. Our latest? The penguin exhibit at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. Info and photos after the jump.
Though we’re known for our business-savvy solutions, sometimes a project comes along that is just plain fun. Our latest? The Humbolt penguin exhibit at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo.
The Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) recently gave a serious makeover to the 62-year old exhibit, which had originally been designed for seals and sea lions. We were honored to join a stellar team that included WPZ specialists and the exhibit designers: Studio Hanson/Roberts.
The new, $6.5 million, 17,000 sq. ft. outdoor exhibit presents an authentic view of the rugged, arid coastline of Peru, home to the penguins.
Our job? To create environmental graphics to make visitors feel they’d stepped into the Peruvian fishing village of Punta San Juan, at the largest Humboldt penguin conservation zone in the world.
We developed Peruvian-style graphics and applied them to murals, gates and other graphic elements to greet, inform, and persuade visitors they were in a remote village in South America. We used the same graphic style to develop donor recognition materials for partners and friends of the project. And in a proud first for our studio, we designed a graphic celebrating the merits of guano.
The real star of the show: the penguins. Visitors watch thru large walls of glass as the birds swim and dive. “The birds enjoy the public. They like to look (back) at them through the glass,” said a zoo keeper. “They like little kids with shiny shoes and sunglasses and fast-moving hands.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBYc_aO14jU&feature=fvsr
Project Team:
Woodland Park Zoo (Scott Vance, interpretive exhibit specialist: Monica Lake, project manager); Studio Hanson/Roberts (Becca Hanson and Jim McDonough – exhibit design); Dillion Works (fabricator of the graphic elements).
