Two of largest zoos in the world rebrand as San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

The San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, two of the largest zoos in the world and home to a combined total of more than 15,000 rare animals, worked with New York City-based creative agency Pentagram to rebrand as the San Diego Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA).

The previous identity, updated more than a decade ago, treated San Diego Zoo Global, the San Diego Zoo, and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park as adjacent brands, each with their own visual systems. The organization needed an identity with a cohesive brand architecture that could hold all this together and present the parks as an important part of a larger wildlife conservation effort.

The new logo brings together three animals that are important to the history of the SDZWA and represent its century-long conservation efforts. The lion is joined in the mark by a California condor, a species brought back from the brink of extinction in a signature achievement by the organization, and a white rhino, which they are saving with one of most successful managed breeding programs in the world. The animal images play with positive and negative space, with the idea that by combining them in a single circular shape woud reflect the interdependence of all living things on the planet.

Both the colour palette- ‘Habitat Green,’ a dark forest green or Elephant Gray’- and the typography, with letterforms that have animalistic qualities like swooping tails and sharp spurs, reconnect to the central animal theme.

The rebrand was also an opportunity for the organisation to connect broadest audience possible, from the families who visit and support the Zoo and Safari Park to the scientific community who help contribute to its research. The mission of the SDZWA is saving species worldwide, a subject that can be bleak, challenging and negative, but it wanted to balance this with a new name that was inspiring and positive. The new name for the parent brand, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, conveys the breadth of the organization and suggests a force for good joined together in the fight to protect and save animals.