MARKETING Toolkit Design

Nickelodeon THEME Parks

I created the marketing toolkits for Nickelodeon Universe and Nickelodeon Land parks. Under the guidance of Theo Reyes, I developed a design system based on the brand’s guidelines created by the team at Roger, featuring gradients, textures, best practices, and bold typography, to act as a source of truth for partners domestically and internationally.

Background

At the AIGA conference last October, I had the privilege of engaging with leading design stewards and discussing my passions and goals. I met Oona Stern, the Art Director at Nickelodeon Parks and Resorts. She sought someone to develop a unified marketing toolkit for their upcoming brand campaign, and I was ready to take on the challenge.

ROLE

Designer

CLIENT

Paramount

Timeline

4 Months

TOOLS

Illustrator

InDesign

PROBLEM STATEMENT

In 2023, Nickelodeon launched a refreshed brand campaign featuring bright gradients and dynamic neon green slime, using iconic splat elements as portals for transitioning characters into new worlds. While the kinetic 3D designs excelled on screen, they didn't translate well to print and marketing within Nickelodeon Parks & Resorts. I was brought in to develop a design system that captured the brand identity and offered a fresh feel globally, creating cohesive toolkits for Nickelodeon Land and Universe parks.

Project Goal

Utilize the brand’s existing design system to create a refreshed toolkit for the parks.
Create compositions inclusive of assets and IP that can be applied across the brand in digital, print, and seasonal campaigns.
Unite the branding for both Nickelodeon Land and Nickelodeon Universe to communicate consistent guidelines.

MY Approach

I aimed to incorporate many dimensional elements from the brand kit into the park design. However, feedback indicated that shadows and complex textures reduced legibility and were hard to replicate. I refined the designs to focus on splat shapes with color gradients, creating depth without using drop shadows or highlights.

FIRST ITERATIONS

My initial approach was to have a maximalist design encompassing all the slimey, glittery elements in the digital campaign, but quickly ran into the issues expressed in the brief: Illegibility. It was also noted that they liked that I embraced the richness of the deep gem colors, especially the navy, purple, and signature orange tones. So I leaned in and went to work improving my design.

Typography

For typography, I mirrored the justified, bold format of the brand kit using Roc Grotesque Wide Heavy minus the renderings and slime details.

USE OF CHARACTERS

Past campaigns showed that intertwining IP characters with park imagery caused confusion and opened the door for the misuse of IP art. I instead designed seamless visuals where characters act as hosts, inviting visitors into the park. I layered characters between copy spaces to create dimension and the effect of crossing into another universe.

Final Design

With feedback from the art director, I played with different types of gradients within the splat shapes and background textures. This simplified the design system and unified the compositions. The characters needed to take center stage and I used them to direct the designs.

Overall, I developed a color-rich, kinetic design system that incorporated all of the keystones of the brand direction. Compositions can easily adapt to print, banner, billboard, and in-park displays for domestic and international partner's use.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

I created a design system using Illustrator, streamlining the process significantly. While I had previously used similar features in Sketch to create symbols and tokens, expanding my skills in Adobe was a great experience.

Asking questions and being open to feedback are crucial for learning valuable lessons. At the end of the day, the client wants the best product, so honesty is essential.

I introduced the team to collaborative feedback on Adobe, enabling the art director and me to provide real-time feedback and make changes between team meetings. This improved our efficiency and timeliness."