How Creativity Shapes the Way We Experience National Parks
Have you ever noticed that national parks rarely advertise themselves like traditional brands? Instead of relying on commercials or sales pitches, they inspire people through photography, videos, and personal stories that showcase the beauty and significance of these places. This reflects the role of the creative and cultural industries (CCI), where media, design, and storytelling influence how people connect with the world around them.
The United States is home to more than 60 national parks, each offering something different, from towering mountains and deep canyons to historic landmarks and coastal landscapes. These protected spaces attract visitors for many reasons, whether to enjoy nature, learn about history, or experience different cultures. While discussions about park management continue, this blog focuses on how creativity influences the way parks are presented to the public through media, digital platforms, and visual communication.
National Parks and Modern Marketing
Unlike commercial businesses, national parks promote experiences rather than products. Campaigns such as Find Your Park encourage visitors to see parks as places for exploration, reflection, and personal connection. Instead of emphasizing tourism alone, these campaigns highlight the idea that national parks belong to everyone as part of the country's shared natural and cultural heritage.
Much of our connection to national parks today comes through visual storytelling. Photography, documentaries, short videos, and social media help bring landscapes, wildlife, and conservation efforts to people who may have never set foot in a park before. A single image or clip can make a distant place feel surprisingly close. But this isn’t actually a new idea. Before 1934, most promotion of national parks came from outside industries, especially train and automobile companies. They highlighted the parks less out of conservation interest and more as a way to sell tickets, road trips, and travel experiences.
That shifted in 1934, when the National Park Service took on promotion of the parks in a new way and launched its first self-directed advertising effort. They declared the year “National Park Year” and commissioned artist Dorothy Waugh to design a set of six lithograph-style posters. This moment is often seen as an early turning point in National Park Service’s graphic design, because it marked the agency beginning to actively shape how the parks were visually presented to the public, rather than relying on outside companies to do it for them.
That visual approach grew a few years later with the Works Projects Administration posters campaign, which produced iconic silkscreen posters for individual parks between 1938 and 1941. These designs helped solidify a strong, recognizable visual identity for national parks in American culture. Even decades later, that thread continues. People like Adam Savage have revisited this history in videos and museum visits, exploring how National Park Service’s graphic design evolved and how deeply it shaped the way we imagine these landscapes. Today, the tools are different, but the instinct is the same. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok carry forward that tradition, turning parks into instantly shareable moments that can spark curiosity and make these places feel more accessible to people wherever they are.
The National Park Foundation's Instagram account is a great example. Instead of posting traditional advertisements, it shares stunning photos with captions that tell the stories behind them. A photo of a ranger standing in a wildfire recovery area, for example, might explain how forests naturally recover after a fire and why that process is essential for healthy ecosystems. By combining powerful images with storytelling, these posts turn beautiful scenery into opportunities to learn something new.
Short-form videos build on that connection by giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at life in these protected spaces. Whether it's rangers tracking wildlife, restoring habitats, or guiding first-time hikers, these videos feel authentic and help people appreciate both nature and the work that goes into protecting it.
Creativity also plays an important role in preserving history and culture. Many national parks protect Indigenous heritage, historic landmarks, and long-standing traditions, then use museums, exhibits, and educational programs to help visitors understand their significance. For example, Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado preserves thousands of Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and archaeological sites, while many tribes still maintain cultural connections to the area today. At Yosemite National Park, the Yosemite Museum features the Indian Cultural Exhibit along with historic artifacts and artwork that help visitors learn about the region's Indigenous history. These experiences remind visitors that these places are more than beautiful landscapes, they also tell the stories of the people and cultures that have shaped them.
The visitor experience is also made more engaging through creative design and technology. Websites, trail maps, interactive exhibits, and mobile apps make it easier to learn while exploring. Some locations even use augmented reality (AR) to bring nature and history to life. For example, visitors to the Angeles National Forest can use the Agents of Discovery app to complete location-based challenges that teach them about the area's wildlife, landscape, and ecosystem. Ranger-led programs also use storytelling to turn facts about nature and history into experiences that are interesting, memorable, and fun to follow.
In the end, national parks are more than just beautiful places to visit. They're spaces where creativity helps people connect with nature, history, and culture in meaningful ways. Whether it's through social media, museums, educational programs, or digital tools, the creative and cultural industries make these parks more engaging and inspire people to appreciate and protect them for future generations.
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