Taking outdoor adventure parks
to the next level
Within many industries, the leading brands are emulated, which over time results in sector conventions and a lack of differentiation of brand expression. For some businesses, blending in with their competitors may be viewed as a risk-averse business strategy.
However, this copy-cat approach is probably the riskiest to take – lack of differentiation is one of the reasons new businesses fail. Your business needs to stand for something authentic and get noticed for it, otherwise, you make it that much harder for audiences to remember who you are, and what you offer.
In 2018, Self-titled helped position and launch Australia’s first off-grid adventure park – Live Wire Park. Following this successful launch and having quickly established ourselves within the sector, we were approached to help create Australia’s largest high ropes course at Sunshine Plaza in Queensland – Next Level.
More recently we created the brand identity for Treetops Adventure – the new name for Trees Adventure following acquisition of their main competitor, TreeTops. The business was recently sold to Experience Co, one of the world’s largest adventure tourism companies.
The visual expression of brands within the outdoor adventure parks sector is dominated by visual tropes and clichés such as ‘George of the Jungle’ style graphics and silhouettes of harnessed figures. How then, can you stand out so your audiences find you in this sea of sameness?
Amplify your point of difference.
Branding is all about identifying what makes your business unique and amplifying that difference.
For Next Level, the differentiating element was the urban course on poles – rather than in trees – providing vertical stacking of levels at taller heights than what’s usually achievable.
We named the park ‘Next Level’ as the higher the level, the harder the circuits become and quickly saw parallels to the platform video games we grew up playing.
This provided inspiration for a custom 8-bit font with stylised ‘E’s that formed a ladder graphic. Differentiating and ownable brand language extended to the naming of the 7 circuits.
Live and breathe your brand
To truly create a lasting impression, ensure your brand idea is clearly communicated and reinforced through every brand touchpoint.
The single-minded brand idea for Live Wire Park is ‘Nature Supercharged’. It informed everything from the signature colour – the green of the forest dialled up to 11 – to the visual and verbal language.
Linear typography and iconography was drawn from references to circuit diagrams while merchandise is eco-friendly and reusable.
In 2019, Live Wire Park was awarded a gold medal for New Tourism Business at the annual RACV Victorian Tourism Awards.
Build simple, scalable design systems
Brands need to be easy to apply – those which are hard to apply, or can’t evolve, ultimately break.
Treetops Adventure is Australia’s premier outdoor adventure group. Having acquired their main competitor, they now own and operate more than a dozen locations across five states.
In light of this rapid growth, their rebrand required scalable design systems which are easy for internal teams to roll out across new parks and activities.
We stripped everything back to a simple system – an iconic arrow-tree which flexes for different uses, a colour set based on the difficulty of their activities and a playful tone of voice and illustration style.
“Our branding has had an immediate and dramatic impact on our business and has become a game-changer for the industry.”
Successful branding projects demonstrate how, through smart design, ambitious businesses can level up. Self-titled can help ensure your brand has an authentic brand and brand story, and collaboratively deliver this in a memorable way.
Whether it’s creating a new brand for a start-up, or helping an existing business level up, we’re always happy to discuss new business opportunities.
