AlinaWheeler-DesigningBrandIdentity

The Wild CenterThe Wild Center is alive. As the Natural HistoryMuseum of the Adirondacks, it is a base camp forexploring a 6-million-acre collection. Its living collectionis the Adirondacks themselves.GoalsWork collaboratively todefine the museum’s vision,brand and voice.Determine positioning andnaming strategy.Design the brand identity.Situated on a 31-acre campus in Tupper Lake, New York, the museum’s mainexhibit follows a river to the summit of a snowcapped mountain and includeswaterfalls, a lake exhibit, forests, and streams. Two hundred live animal speciesinhabit this living museum. The museum’s Great Hall is dominated by atowering ice wall, and its core contains a forest populated with high-definitioninteractive media.Write the mission, masterplan and exhibit text.Our mission is to inspire a broadpublic understanding of thenatural systems that shape andsustain life in the Adirondacks.The museum team included:Museum project managerand staffBoard of TrusteesHOK, a global architecturalpractice that specializesin innovation in the builtenvironment, and designsmuseums, wayfinding, andexhibitsChedd-Angier-Lewis, museummedia design and productionConsultEcon, economicresearch and managementconsultantsPoints North, communicationsand branding firmThe Adirondacks are uniquein the world. Surroundedby people, they housegreat expanses of natureinterspersed with small townsand communities. They can bea model for a future where manand the rest of the natural worldfind better ways to coexist.Donald K. Clifford, Jr.PresidentThe Natural History Museum of theAdirondacks288