A comprehensive naming and signage system installed throughout the park rates a 95% approval in a recent visitor survey
PASADENA, CA — December 10, 2009 — With more than three million visitors each year, the San Diego Zoo is a world-class destination. Yet with its hilly site, miles of winding tree-shrouded trails and more than 300 animals and exhibits, the venue can often prove to be a complex navigational challenge to visitors. In an effort to improve ease of access throughout the facility, the Zoo recently brought in Pasadena-based wayfinding design expert Hunt Design, a leading graphic designer for buildings, spaces and places, to improve the overall guest experience by developing a park-wide naming and signage system for the streets, paths and trails inside the Zoo.
“Comfort, familiarity and ease of access are critical components to creating an enjoyable experience at any destination,” said firm Principal Wayne Hunt. “Simple and clear path and area naming can be as important as welldesigned signs in accomplishing that goal.”
A recent survey of park visitors found, “Overall, 95% of the visitors found their way around the zoo fairly well or very well,” by using a new system of signs, maps and new arterial streets, such as Front Street, Center Street and Park Way, that now connect the four zoo zones, such as Outback, Lost Forest and Polar Rim, and provide visitors an easily understood wayfinding armature for navigating the entire Zoo.
The project was initially intended to focus on new directional signs, but after observing visitor behavior on several visits, the Hunt team realized that visitors were continually falling off the map, or losing orientation. Hunt’s planners recommended a complete new naming system for all streets, paths and trails based, in part, on the way
people use streets in a city – and how they give directions to each other.
“A large part of the mission of the San Diego Zoo is to build awareness for endangered species,” said Debra Erickson, Associate Director of Marketing for the San Diego Zoo. “By creating a wayfinding experience that is seamless with our immersion experiences we allow guests to focus more fully on a day of discovery and enjoyment.”
Hunt also recommended all-new descriptive trail names with clearly marked ?trail heads? at both ends of each trail. Each trail connects to a street, further aiding wayfinding. At the trail heads a map of the trail is posted showing which animals are on the trail, walking time and incline information. This innovative, visitor-friendly map system is
unique to the San Diego Zoo.
“We used the conventions of hiking trail signs to communicate at the detailed level of trails – where all of the animals are,” said Hunt Design Project Manager and Principal Jennifer Bressler.
Additionally, accessibility for elderly and mobility-impaired visitors is equally important, especially in zoos with steep grades and long trails. To easily identify the most accessible trail through the center of the Zoo, Hunt suggested the name Easy Street, adding a sense of clarity to the wayfinding.
Consistent with the Zoo?s move to zone-based exhibit areas, Hunt recommended that all major wayfinding signs direct only to zones, not to specific animals, standard practice in many zoos. While some visitors may miss animalspecific directional signs, this approach yielded a network of large simple pointer-style directional signs found along the three streets and at all major intersections. In another innovation, each primary sign features a large map location? numeral, matching a numbered location on the handout map. The zone pointers are color coordinated with the zones shown on the map. “Linking the carry-around map to the numbered directional signs is
a new idea that helps everyone stay oriented, or get reoriented if lost,“ says Bressler.
To pull all of the Zoo changes together, Hunt created an all-new map showing not only the zones, street and path names, but easy to scan listings of key zoo amenities and options — making the tough decision to abandon the industry convention of an illustrated topographic map in favor of a more diagrammatic design emphasizing the zones, paths and trails. Additionally, graphics similar to website pull-down menus provide a familiar and contemporary visual solution for associating a wide variety of informational, such as Zones with animal listings,Walking the Zoo with each trail described, Dining, etc.
Visuals are available upon request.
Contact:
Todd Hays
TODD Public Relations
626.345.0255
[email protected]