Retro 71

This week’s Retro 71 concept is a special twofer. The concepts are based on my favorite resort, The Polynesian Resort. The Polynesian Resort was one of the original hotel concepts dreamed up by WED Imagineering for the Walt Disney World Resort, and it opened the same year as the theme park in 1971 under its original name, The Polynesian Village. The resort has not only grown in size due to its popularity, but it has also seen some changes in its look and branding. From fonts to color palettes, to pools to interior decor, the resort has evolved over the years.

When thinking of shirt concepts for the Polynesian Resort, I wanted to pay tribute to the original name of the resort and use the original logo with the iconic tiki idol. I love all the old branding where the designers used the main tiki idol on pretty much everything from hand soap wrappers to shot glasses (aka tooth pick holders), from frosted libation mugs to even "privacy please" door hanger signs. Nowadays he's seen in a few places around the resort, most notably on trash cans.

The first shirt concept is the classic logo. I tried to plus the design by changing the colors to match the original tile floor of the resort. The original color palette of the resort consisted of deep browns, aqua teals and mossy looking yellowish greens, and I wanted to bring that back to keep it consistent with the overall look of these shirts. I picture this design on a vintage ringer that has color banding around the arms and neck in either a dark brown or the same color as the resort name depicted on the shirt.

The second shirt concept is our favorite tiki idol, but with his legs! Today, only a couple of locations remain where you can still see him depicted with his jaunty little legs. Keeping the color story consistent with the first shirt, I incorporated the same color palette.  I believe it really captures the feel and tone of the resort from back in the day. When looking at the shirts next to each other, I can imagine seeing them sold together at the Boutiki in the Great Ceremonial House. In my downtime, I've come up with an entire product line that includes these two shirts along with a few other fun tropical treasures that celebrate the history and traditions of this amazing resort.

Well that about does it for this week’s Retro 71 segment. I hope you enjoyed the designs! Until next time, have a swell week and be on the lookout for a new soundboard coming soon, not to mention even further looks into the typefaces used on some of our favorite Disney Theme Park attractions. See ya soon!

Backstage Magic with Mickey Mouse

In this week’s case study we'll be looking at the magical typography used throughout the new Backstage Magic with Mickey Mouse character meet and greet.

On April 1^st of this year, the Main Street Exposition Hall changed its name to the newly renovated Town Square Theater. The Theater now includes two elaborate character meet and greets: one for the Disney Princesses and one for the main mouse. The new character meet and greets are the first to utilize Disney's FASTPASS ticketing system, which now guarantees guests an audience with the beloved mouse.

Imagineers designed this new experience to resemble a turn-of-the-century magic show, where Mickey is the main magician and the guests get to venture backstage to interact with him before his next act of people-pleasing prestidigitation. 

While in line, guests are treated to humorous and clever advertising bills for Mickey the Magnificent. The posters depict Mickey and some of his noteworthy feats of illusion. Using cutting edge technology mixed with some good old fashioned mathematical magic, a few posters actually interact with guests as they wait. 

These posters set the stage for some amazing type specimens. The designers of the various posters and signage really streamlined the font palette. Most of the typography comes from one particular type foundry, which is noted for producing turn-of-the-century, elaborate display fonts. Some of the classifications of fonts seen throughout the new meet and greet area are: Western, Victorian, Script, Late 1800's, Early 1900's, and Decorative. Main Street U.S.A. has a great many fonts used from this foundry, and if one were to ask me where to find Disney Park fonts with that Main Street feeling, I would recommend this one foundry right off the bat. What is this foundry you ask? Well . . . a true type magician never reveals his secrets.

I think that does it for this week’s typography case study. Tune in Monday for another Retro 71 concept and for those of you who have enjoyed the Haunted Mansion Soundboard app, I pleased to inform you that I have created 2 new soundboard apps and have a 4th one in the works, so tune in for these real soon! Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Color Study

This week I'm rolling out a new feature for Designerland: The Wonderful World of Kuler. What's Kuler, you ask? Kuler is a program designed by Adobe that allows designers to create special color palettes, save them and share them with others through extensions in the Adobe Creative Suite. With a BFA in painting and a few color theory courses under my belt, I'm obsessed with color. You didn't think typography was the only thing I enjoyed, did ya?  My goal is simply to highlight the various color palettes used within the parks. Without further ado I give you our first color palette, Walt Disney World's The Haunted Mansion facade.

There are actually tons of colors used within the character paint for the Mansion, so these are just a few of the colors present within that spectrum. I hope to showcase a few other palettes used within the Haunted Mansion further down the road, so stay tuned.

So the next time you’re having trouble picking out colors for a project, be it a brochure design or painting your home, just jump on over to Kuler. To access the color palettes within CS, simply open Kuler in your extensions and search for “disneydesignerland”. I hope you all enjoy this new feature and get some use out of it—I know I will!