Monday 26 December 2011

Design Production for Digital//Top 10//Edingburgh Zoo.


With recently highlighted news about penguin activity at Edinburgh Zoo, I felt this would be a great opportunity to do a little more research about the famed zoo, and about the species of Rockhopper and Gentoo penguins that they house.

Ideally, for primary source research for this brief, I would have visited my largest local zoo, Chester Zoo (the largest Zoo in England), for images, though due to the festive period, may be restricted by opening hours, my availability, etc. Therefore, when I return to Leeds in January, I am seriously considering taking a day/weekend trip up to Edinburgh to visit the Zoo for research.

Here are some examples of research I have found online, and particularly from their home website (sources linked below images/text).



Going onto the homepage, I was delighted to see the logo for the first time- a penguin. Oh so appropriate, of  course- again, fitting to the visual colour scheme suggested from my questionnaire survey, and what would usually be associated with penguins- black, white and an ocher- like yellow.



Found this great resource from the Edinburgh Zoo website- unfortunately down at the minute, I'll be tuning in in the new year to hopefully take a glimpse of the Gentoo penguins in their enclosure thanks to the live webcam- a great facility which will provide an inside-access look into the penguins behaviour and mannerisms for study in my motion graphics work.


Online access video and information about the Gentoo penguins at Edinburgh Zoo and the weigh- in  of the newly born chicks to add the the community clutches- and a view of the habitat in which they live (which has been recreated very well for these penguins in this zoo environment)- adorable chicks, and a potential diversity to work with in terms of visual outcome for my idents- perhaps using the baby penguin chicks would appeal even more so to my 5-11 years target audience?


More facts and statistical data- great potential to include in my presentation as research towards finding out more about penguins as an animal group, their behaviour, mannerism, etc.


One of the starting points for my research was the recent news about, with the arrival of the new breeding pandas at Edinburgh Zoo, the Rockhopper penguins have become rather jealous of the attention their new monochrome neighbours have been attracting- and, as a result, have "playfully" been flinging their own poo at visitors- in truly mischevious penguin- fashion. This report is from Scotland-based Daily Record.




QUEUES of people waiting to see Edinburgh Zoo's giant pandas are being hit by penguin droppings.
Edinburgh Zoo said the rockhopper penguins, whose enclosure borders the pandas' new home, could be suffering from "monochrome jealousy" of Tian Tian and Yang Guang, who arrived from China at the start of December.
The zoo is now considering installing a glass panel to protect the visitors from the droppings.
Gary Wilson, Director of Business Operations at the zoo said the penguins were "extremely curious" about the pandas.
He said: "Our rockhopper penguins in particular have been watching the events at the panda enclosure below with great interest, ever since work started on the enclosure.
"Extremely curious birds, they often gather next to the wall to see what's happening below. We're hoping it's not a case of monochrome jealousy, but one or two of our rockhoppers seem to have had surprisingly good aim.
"As far as we're aware it's just happened once and the person laughed it off good naturedly, but we think it's best to look into a solution, probably in the form of a glass panel so that the visitors' view of the penguins isn't obscured."
A 41-year-old, who didn't want to be named, told the BBC: "We were queuing to see the pandas when a man in front shouted out in surprise that his jacket had been hit by a big dollop of penguin poo.
"It was really oily and stank of fish. It was disgusting.
"It was quite funny but the zoo should do something so it doesn't happen to anyone else."
Tian Tian and Yang Guang are to stay in Scotland for at least 10 years.
They went on display to the public for the first time last Monday - 
and 10,000 people have booked tickets to see them.

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