Public Lands · Centennial Rebrand
National Park Service
A simple Centennial Celebration logo turned into a complete brand overhaul.
Overview
The National Park Service and National Park Foundation were looking to build a new brand and campaign for their centennial celebration. Upon reviewing their existing brand system, I realized the existing brands were a bit dissonant with lots of different colors, type, imagery, and so on. So instead of simply giving them a centennial logo (and adding to their visual confusion), they got a brand overhaul instead… as well as the originally requested Centennial logo.
As a brand with a heritage, they felt the current logo wasn’t inclusively representing the wide variety of parks across the states, as most parks don’t have sequoias, bison, or mountains. To address that, I stripped it back a bit and created a fresh, expandable branding system. The texture used throughout the new system was taken from the etchings of the original logo, thus bringing a bit of the heritage along with it. The classic arrowhead shape was also carried over, and the type was pulled out of the arrowhead itself which allows the logo to be reduced much smaller while still maintaining legibility.
Giving this brand overhaul to both the NPS and NPF brought the two separate entities into the modern era under a brand that works in a modern context while still giving a nod to its history.
Identity
The classic arrowhead stays, but the type moves out of the mark, which is what lets the logo shrink without turning to mush. The texture comes from the etchings in the original arrowhead, so a bit of the heritage rides along. NPS and NPF share the language and keep their own lockups.
Four Pieces to the Puzzle
On top of the Centennial mark and the NPS/NPF brand, a separate Find Your Park campaign was commissioned: four distinct marks, one shared texture language.
Full Color
Reversed
Reduced Mark
Campaign
Apparel for both the core brand and the Find Your Park campaign.
Centennial
Find Your Park
Using the Arrowhead
The arrowhead is an iconic graphic, so bringing it into the forefront of campaign pieces in a way that felt powerful was paramount. I created a way to use it to show the parks in a way that could either enhance the photo, like showing the same image both daytime and sunset, or using it to add weight and gravitas to something like the MLK Memorial.
MLK Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
The Result
Four marks, one heritage. A modern system that brings NPS and NPF under the same language, celebrates a centennial, and reframes America’s parks through the arrowhead that started it all.
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