Cincinnati Zoo Animal Passport

This summer I visited the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden with my niece. I wanted to make sure we saw all of the must-sees at the zoo while also having a running total of the animals we saw and where we'd been. Unfortunately, the zoo doesn't offer that currently, either in digital or paper format. There are apparently some online paper options for sale by third parties, but we were already at the zoo.

We loved our time regardless. The Cincinnati Zoo is a world-class organization and destination, and the staff are absolutely terrific. But the thought gnawed at me enough that I spent the following weekend building a digital scavenger hunt we could use on our next trip.

I wanted to gamify seeing the animals, but in a way that felt easy, relevant to the animals and the zoo, and fun for kids and families. I also wanted it to be mobile and tablet first, with big buttons and clever, engaging animations. The result is this website.

The idea: walk up to an animal, tap "I Saw This Animal!", and watch it land in an illustrated passport. Thirty-eight animals across eight categories, thirty-one achievements, all running entirely in the browser.

How it works

• Browse animals by category (Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Aquatic, Insects & Friends, and a "Local Legends" category for zoo-famous individuals like Fiona the Hippo and Tater the tortoise)
• Every animal card opens to quick facts, a fun fact, and a conservation status badge, pulled directly from cincinnatizoo.org so nothing is invented
• Tapping "I Saw This Animal!" triggers a Framer Motion collection animation and fills in that animal's stamp in the passport view
• Achievements unlock along the way: first mammal, first bird, five collected, all thirty-eight, category sweeps like "Big Cat Club" and "Otter Obsessed"
• Everything persists in localStorage — no login, no account, no server. Close the tab mid-visit and the passport is still there when you come back

The illustration style

Every animal is a paper-cutout-style illustration, generated and then hand-tuned against a consistent style prompt so the whole set reads as one collection instead of thirty-eight unrelated images.