Baboon Lagoon

I recently worked with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and Ron Foth Advertising to create a logo for the zoo's new kid-friendly water park, Baboon Lagoon. The basic idea for the theme of the park is that a peaceful baboon village is being harassed by a nasty octopus bully. The baboons retaliate by dumping a giant barrel of water on him. The zoo wanted all these elements represented in the logo and to capture the fun of the attraction.

The logo started out featuring baby baboons, as the attraction is targeted at children. So we tried a couple different options featuring a barrel of baby baboons.

We reached a decision on the basic layout of the image and made some choices about the font. We then started to play with how realistic vs. cartoony the octopus should be.

We also eventually came to realize that baby baboons are hard to visually differentiate from other monkeys and apes. Being that the attraction is part of a zoo, they felt strongly that we need to make it clear that these animals are baboons, so we decided to age the characters a bit. We also decided that while the octopus and baboons in the park would look realistic, we should go with more simplified, cartoon versions of the characters in the logo.

For more information about Baboon Lagoon, check out their website at http://www.zoombezibay.com/default.aspx

Photos of the park provided by Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and Zoombezi Bay