Dinosaur Island

Thanksgiving Point • SummerS 2022 and 2023

Thanksgiving Point partnered with Dino Don, Inc. to place more than 25 life-sized animatronic dinosaurs across the 50-acre Ashton Gardens. Everything guests read, followed, or took home was mine, and it had to make a touring exhibit feel like a Thanksgiving Point event.

The Dino Detective package gave guests a reason to keep exploring: a drawstring backpack, binoculars, a vinyl sticker, a collectible pin, and a scratch-off map that revealed which dinosaur they were and how they survived the island. I designed and sourced production for the map, sticker, and pin, and worked with our marketing project manager on theming the backpack and binoculars she sourced. It’s the same instinct I’d come back to two years later as the Explorer’s Guild.

I built the visual system across both seasons. Campaign identity, entry monuments and wayfinding, interpretive signage, themed elements extending into the other four venues, and the full advertising campaign of freeway billboards, light pole banners, and three-sided banner artwork for the property’s water tower. It opened as “Escape to Dinosaur Island” in 2022 and returned as “Return to” in 2023 with a refreshed giveaway package and updated advertising.

ROLE: Identity, art direction, and design across all deliverables, both seasons

COLLABORATORS: Copywriter (all signage and guest-facing copy), marketing project manager (sourced backpack and binoculars), Dino Don, Inc. (animatronic exhibit), print and fabrication vendors

TOOLS: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects

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