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Paradise Park
The Colors of Nature
As part of a year-long renovation of Paradise Park's 15 acres of exotic birds and plants, we were brought in to develop a new identity and signage system and to upgrade the five ethnic exhibits.
At the same time, the owners were teaming up with Dinamation of California to install a permanent exhibit of robotic dinosaurs in the main building.
We used the theme of "color in nature" to link all the aspects of the park experience. The wild, contrasting colors of the tropical plants, birds and fish provided a vibrant palette for our design work.
The primary sign at the entry to the property.
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The Park was best known for its exotic birds and plants. We designed a logo that could be read as either one or the other - or both.
The entry to the park was decked out with a series of colorful banners that featured the denizens of the park.
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Pointing the Way to a Garden of Earthly Delights
Taking a cue from Mother Nature, we designed the signs to echo the sensual shapes of the tropical foliage. We divided the sign panel into a graphic module with a colorful creature or plant on top and an informational or directional module below.
We created names and logos for the gift shop, which featured souvenirs and educational toys, and the Discovery Center, an interactive educational center on the grounds.
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Reinterpreting the ethnic exhibits
The existing ethnic exhibits were run down and disorganized. They lacked a common thread that could help build an understanding of the different cultures.
The five exhibits featured Hawaiian, Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese, and Chinese "villages." For each of these cultures, we researched five areas: history, shelter, food, religion, and the use of color. This provided a framework for comparing and contrasting each group and also linked it back to the overriding concept of color in nature used throughout the park.
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The Hawaiian exhibit
After researching the five cultures around a common theme, we reconceived each village to provide interpretive signage and areas
for actively demonstrating aspects of each culture. In this rendering, the Hawaiian exhibit was resituated on a pond and enlarged, and landscaped with native medicinal and edible plants.
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Before & after
We developed a color scheme for the buildings in the park that extended the theme of color. We also designed a few new structures to house birds and shelter picnickers. Below is a view of the exterior of the Rainbow Theatre before the renovation, and, right, the same structure painted to evoke a MaŻnoa rainbow.
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Is that a dinosaur across the pond?
To bring the dinosaur concept out of the main hall, we installed an actual size Allosaurus thighbone with descriptive signage, and across the pond built a life sized Allosaurus topiary. The topiary is shown here at the beginning of the "grow in" stage.
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