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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Blackhole_Sun said:
They are an impression of what people thought the 90’s looked like….

If you look at logos from Windows, Toys R us, blockbuster, McDonald’s etc none use that colour palette.
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I had bedsheets like this in the 90's 😂

Steve74 said:
Thing is, I get nostalgia and how popular it is, but if their intention - if only slight - was to encapsulate the 90s vibe, why do that when they're rebranding and they're leaving the old behind and looking to a bright, clean, fresh future?
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I'd be interested to hear a breakdown of why they've chosen this particular design. As mentioned earlier, it's easy to understand dynamic, simple, clean (some great examples of 2D design done well above from @Trooper Looper ) but the logo itself is more suited to something like golf club or as @Shaggy_Dog_ shared... a holiday camp 😂 The vibrant branding, new soundtrack & tagline is great... the logo... it's left a lot of questions.
 
Aside from the weirdness of the O protruding above the median (the top of the other lowercase characters), which suggests to me that it has simply been rotated 45° and left otherwise unchanged, my biggest problem is how they’ve presented it.

In the brand reveal film I think it works well where it has a background pattern and animation behind it. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is the fact they’ve produced just a wordmark with no graphical elements. EP have their flying stars, Efteling have the wand wave and sparks, even the new Drayton logo has the stars and swirl device.

Thorpe has nothing and is only compounded by the fact they’ve used a fairly uneventful typographic style. That’s why it looks bland. Compare it to something like Phantasialand which is also a wordmark, but uses an interesting style on the P, h and t to create features, along with the dividing line.

2560px-Phantasialand_Logo.svg.png



I actually think when you seen the example of it on the hoodie it looks a million times better. It gives something more visually interesting and nicely harkens back to the infinity logo.

image.jpeg

If they had led with a lockup like this it would look and probably have landed a lot better.

I quite like where they’ve gone with the overall brand, but the logo feels like a misfire to me.
 
Trooper Looper said:
You see guys, there are good 2D logos which don't feel corporate and have a Theme Park feel to them without looking bland. There was actually effort put into them.o_1828.jpg
europapark_d3d06e0bd12f5d90728aff24eb7dc62e.jpg
And Europa Parks have been using their logo almost unchanged since 1988.

But this... this is a different story.20231130_195347.jpg
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Again Thorpes original logo is a great example of flat logo design
4bbcb6c4e3145f0bf68e21fa47e7a7ba.jpg

Should have had this with the new colour palette and brand design language/ material
 
Joeythorpe said:
Again Thorpes original logo is a great example of flat logo design
4bbcb6c4e3145f0bf68e21fa47e7a7ba.jpg

Should have had this with the new colour palette and brand design language/ material
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I won't lie, the more I see that OG logo, the more I grows on me. I noticed that Tussauds even kept the colour scheme of the OG logo when they introduced the infinity logo.

The new one would've look so much better if they added a silhouette of the Dome above it in the background and made the fonts have the orange and blue colour the OG logo and the infinity logo had.
 
These are a couple of fan-made logos, I've not seen the videos where the park have explained their thought processes and reasoning for the re-brand but I understand they wanted to leave the infinity loop behind. That's fine, but look how much better the logo looks with something behind it!

1701377418363.png
(@A1daN02 on Twitter)

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(@coaster_gen on Twitter)
 
What they have created and released is nothing short of a wordmark rather than a logo - and theres a clear difference between the two, of which a wordmark and/or a logo then make up a brand mark.

The problem is amongst all of the other brand collateral (designs and patterns), it works well, and doesn't look out of place. And it even looks fun but retro at the same time when placed on those patterns.

But take it away from all of those other brand elements and stand it alone, particularly on a white webpage like their site where its also out of balance in terms of scale with the page (because they've clearly squished it down to dimensionally fit), and it looks truly awful.

I think even if it just had something more to make it more of a logo than a wordmark, it could have passed a little better.

(Oh, and I'm not bias, but as Ian says... the slanting 'o' is just lazy and looks so off! Why did they not match the heights so it didn't look uncomfortably out of place!)
 
Appalling.

The wonky o is jarring and the logo seems compositionally off. To go from such a strong logo as the infinity to this lifeless wordart is a real shame. Why was there a need to change it in the first place?

With the way Thorpe is being run these days, and the standard of this logo, am I wrong to suggest that Silkstone and co have made this rather than a proper marketing agency?
 
Quetzal said:
Appalling.

The wonky o is jarring and the logo seems compositionally off. To go from such a strong logo as the infinity to this lifeless wordart is a real shame. Why was there a need to change it in the first place?

With the way Thorpe is being run these days, and the standard of this logo, am I wrong to suggest that Silkstone and co have made this rather than a proper marketing agency?
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It does make you wonder! Afterall, two of his mates do some music overlays and have filmed some promo videos. Don't get me wrong, fair play to them for doing it (especially if they have their own companies and were officially commissioned to do the work), but I dunno, using people who ultimately are just fans to do that kind of important work for a theme park this big and popular just doesn't sit right with me.
 
Quetzal said:
With the way Thorpe is being run these days, and the standard of this logo, am I wrong to suggest that Silkstone and co have made this rather than a proper marketing agency?
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I find it incredibly difficult to believe that the powers that be at Merlin would even permit a division to run with their own in-house designed branding (or that of a individual) for the whole division - certainly I think some elements and stuff could have been done in house, but not a whole rebrand.

It would be far too risky, there is no other company to lay [financial] responsibility at the doorstep of if it does backfire, and I just don't think Merlin directors and management would trust someone in-house to have the expertise to take on a whole brand.

So despite the lack of direct evidence for now, I would say they have paid a brand agency for this - the problem is, working for one of those very agencies once upon a time, it doesn't matter how good the agency is, their research or their advice - the client is ultimately always right, and will ultimately have their way. The agency could have presented them with all these problems, but if their vision is too strong and they wouldn't back down, they are just going to do as they ask in the end to get it out of the door on budget.

That, or it was just a truly awful brief to the design agency, and they have been cheap on the tendering for it (AKA the good old "We've only got £35k for a new brand, make it happen in 12 weeks... now GO!")... that I can believe and have seen far too often....
 
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