Sabin’s initial sketches mostly focused on the directive given to him by Mehrafshani, which was to draw a lion’s head similar to an abstract color wheel.
To celebrate the San Diego Zoo’s one hundredth anniversary in 2016, art director Kambiz Mehrafshani wanted a commemorative logo. He hired prolific logo designer Tracy Sabin for the project. Sabin has been a designer and illustrator since 1973, doing packaging, book illustrations and most notably, logo designs.
The project’s concept started with the very beginning of the zoo. “We like to say the Zoo began with a roar,” Mehrafshani says, “when our founder, Dr. Harry Wegeforth, heard the roar of caged lions that were part of the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park. Dr. Harry decided then and there that San Diego was ready for a zoo and later convinced the city to follow his lead.”
Because the zoo’s history started with the roar of a lion, Mehrafshani wanted to explore logo concepts based on a lion, but with bright, celebratory colors. He imagined working with an image of a lion’s head and mane depicted as a color wheel.
“This concept originated from a beautiful visual of an abstract color wheel I found online. I asked Tracy to imagine the color wheel growing teeth, ears, mouth and a mane, thus transforming it into our centennial lion,”
— Kambiz Mehrafshani
Sabin’s initial sketches mostly focused on the directive given to him by Mehrafshani, which was to draw a lion’s head similar to an abstract color wheel.
The first and most essential stage in Sabin’s logo development process is research. “I looked at photos of lions in various positions: roaring, mouth closed, looking up or down, lit from different angles. I also explored the many ways that artists have depicted a lion from stylized to realistic, from modern to ethnic. I looked at color wheels, quilts, engravings and woodcuts,” he explains. “It’s only after I’ve steeped myself in these visual details that I am able to get pencil ideas to flow.”
Sabin sketched a few color wheel variations, along with other lion head styles and a full-body version. “Although my first efforts at illustrating this color wheel idea were interesting, they were too literal and abstract. They didn’t foster the personal connection Kambiz was hoping for,” Sabin notes. The Zoo’s design review team chose two directions for color explorations. Sabin refined and colored these concepts using warm colors typically associated with a lion’s mane.
Unfortunately, the colors weren’t working with the images. The color wheel concept looked more like a mosaic pattern at first glance and less like a lion, and the mane in the other concept created something different altogether, according to Mehrafshani. “It looked like a lion designed for a Brazilian Carnival mask, and the mane overpowered the face. Sadly, the vibrant color palette didn’t work on either of the concepts.”
Mehrafshani and his team stepped back and evaluated all of Sabin’s efforts and realized their mistake. “Instead of testing one-color compatibility first, we had gone straight to full-color treatments. It was an oversight that came purely from our eagerness to see the final product. This was a revealing moment for us. We pressed the reset button, gathered the best pieces of what we’d already created, and started with some fresh ideas,” he says.
Sabin revisited his earlier concepts, taking the best qualities from each concept, and simplified and combined them. He also felt the lion needed to look more regal and less ferocious. At this stage, Mehrafshani also requested type explorations. “We wanted something clean and modern, but that also subtly acknowledged a sense of history and celebration,” he says.
The logo that was ultimately selected fit the best of both worlds—it was beautiful and powerful in both one-color and four-color applications, and it was easy to identify as a lion.
“When we landed on the final mark, it was a moment of pure elation. From the start we wanted a logo that spoke to the San Diego Zoo’s remarkable past and its exciting future,” Mehrafshani says. “Because Tracy learned so much through the ups and downs of the project, he was able to bring all that knowledge together into a beautiful representation of our history. I’m confident no one else could have created something so incredible and appropriate for our organization.”
In a quick glance it’s obvious both marks totally fail the one-color test, so Mehrafshani and his team evaluated the merits of each logo and determined several things: Although they liked the graphic separations in the first concept, they favored the plumage in the second concept, but it would need some graphic separations so it would work in one color. “We wanted the face to land somewhere between concept one and two—not realistic, but also not so stylized that it was lost as a lion.” They also nixed the calligraphic type.
Sabin modified the lion’s face, making it more regal, and separated the plume, ranging from tame to wild. Each type treatment was slightly modified so the design review team could explore different options. Ultimately, they were drawn to the third concept for the logo and type.
The final logo design works well as one color or with several colors. The design is crisp and contains all the elements the zoo required.
The logo has been adapted to stationery and online communications, as well to merchandise and T-shirts.
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