CuCo have worked on the award-winning Bournemouth Oceanarium brand for many years and last year we were delighted when we found out they had a £1.5m redevelopment project in the pipeline. The extension has increased the size of the seafront tourist hot-spot by a third and after 5 years of planning and construction, the Oceanarium’s largest development project since its 1998 opening is now ready and open to the public!

 

 

This extensive development of one of Bournemouth’s most popular tourist attractions includes: a walk through aviary, sea view terrace, educational exhibits, additional catering facilities and new staff areas. The main focus and largest element of the expansion is the Penguin Beach Encounter, which features a glass fronted beach walkway and underwater viewing windows. The custom-built exhibit, designed to replicate the birds’ natural habitat, is now home to a colony of 10 Humboldt penguins. Visitors are able to mingle amongst the penguins through the specially designed interactive walkway.

 

 

Following the transformation, the Oceanarium approached CuCo to design and illustrate an all-new map of the site to include it’s exciting new zones. CuCo have previously worked with the attraction to create their creative concept and promotional collateral such as leaflets and special event invitations.

 

CuCo recommended a move away from the existing look of the site map, to a totally new and fresh design. We suggested integrating illustrations of the animals onto the map to enable visitors to see exactly what creatures live in which areas of the aquarium. In terms of the illustration, we wanted to create a happy medium between simplicity and complexity in order to allow the map to be endearing yet understandable.

Creative Director Christian Cutler said, “One of the main challenges we experienced with this design was how to portray the Oceanarium’s two floors onto one flat page in a way that visitors would understand. We designed the two floors separately and along with the stair illustrations we were able to achieve an effective image of how the levels are split.”

CuCo’s design team revamped the Oceanarium’s original map into a vibrant, child-friendly design that perfectly portrays the excitement of the expansion and the liveliness of the attraction.

Visit www.oceanarium.co.uk to find out more, or contact us to re-design your site map.