September 30, 2019
IMG Worlds of Adventure
Where heroes come to life
IMG Worlds of Adventure
Brand strategy and brand development of the largest indoor theme park in the world.
IMG Worlds is the owner and operator of the world’s largest indoor theme park, IMG Worlds of Adventure. Based in Dubai, the theme park features four main zones including Cartoon Network, Marvel, a retail and leisure boulevard (IMG Boulevard), and The Lost Valley of Dinosaurs.
IMG Worlds approached Ninth Space to develop a brand that would expand internationally across multiple locations and would be able to encompass multiple branded zones – some of which IMG Worlds would create, whereas others would be globally recognised, such as Marvel.
There were three overarching challenges for the brand development of IMG Worlds. Firstly, partner brands required their own characters, rides, and zones to maintain a degree of separation from other brands. Secondly, IMG Worlds had to be positioned as an all-encompassing destination with multiple experiences, zones, and rides that included merchandising stores, cafes, and restaurants. And, lastly, IMG Worlds had to be able to create new destinations with their own distinctions and themes – for example, Adventure, Discovery, and Legends.
Brand strategy
Brand architecture
Brand identity
Brand language
Wayfinding & signage
Brand guidelines
Brand guidelines that control the use and communications of the brand across the entire theme park: 4 worlds, 2 global partner brands including Marvel and Cartoon Network, 17 rides and attractions, and over 1,000 merchandised retail items.
The brand guidelines had to be simple and consistent to ensure that the wide range of international agencies and suppliers using the brand understood it immediately and were able to correctly apply it to their own specific purposes.
The result was a comprehensive brand manual that could be equally accessed by branding and marketing professionals as well as product manufacturers and merchandise suppliers all over the world, from Europe to China.
Wayfinding strategy and signage design to allow over 20,000 daily visitors to navigate over 1.5 million square feet of parking, rides, attractions, retail, cinemas, and food outlets.
In order to ensure that the 20,000 daily visitors getting to, in, and out of the world’s largest indoor theme park were able to do so seamlessly, Ninth Space needed to develop a wayfinding plan that was simple to understand by everyone, overcame any potential bottlenecks, and kept safety top of mind.
Moreover, the sign design and build needed to correlate with the “worlds” as part of each theme rather than acting as an-add on or obstruction. Each zone is themed differently and so are the sign designs. The materials, lighting, colours, typography, and pictograms marry into the “worlds” yet are equally recognisable across the entire theme park.
The result was a 1.5 million square-foot destination with hundreds of directional and themed signs perfectly placed to allow visitors to move about safely, easily, and intuitively.
