Zoo Symbol

A symbol I designed for a class project in my Introduction to Graphic Design class in October 2024. The goal of the project was to make a symbol for an animal that would fit into the symbol system of the old Washington D.C. National Zoo symbols. We tasked with choosing an animal from Central America, and I chose was the armored rat.

I needed to highlight the key features of the armored rat so that it could be identified with simple shapes and figures. I spent a lot of time shaping the head to allign with both the zoo’s symbols as well as the animal itself. I chose to use a circle as the eye to show its beadiness and alertness as a small rodent often is. I highlighted the ear and whiskers as key features to further make it appear rat-like. The number of whiskers being 3 was a very important decision as this needed to give the idea that there were many of them without making it too detailed. The main feature to identify this animal as the armored rat was the spines on its back. These normally do not appear as uniform and upward pointing, but for the sake of creating a symbol that generalizes the animal this was a necesary decision.

One idea I had that I did not include in the final design was having the entire animal brought down slightly towards the bottom of the frame. I thought this would give the impression that this creature is smaller and on the ground. However, after discussing with my professor, this did not allign as well with the rest of the zoo symbols.