My humble apologies

Dear friends, followers and fans of Designerland,

As of late you may have noticed that Designerland has become well rather stagnate. I apologize for not keeping up but with my full time day job, my freelance work and renovating a home...there just isn't enough time in the day.

Since September my freelance work grew and the projects I got to be a part of were simply a dream for a Disney dork like myself. This year will be an amazing year for park merchandise, just wait and see!!!

Things are about to change here at Designerland and for the good thanks to you guys out there who have supported me and Designerland for the past few years. I have officially been hired by Disney! Some of you that follow me on twitter may already know and again I apologize for taking so long to post it here. I've been in the process of relocating down to Orlando and come this Monday I will be 100% official.

None of this would of happened without your support and again I thank all of you for helping my dream come true.

What does that mean for future of Designerland? Sadly, it means that the blog will be no more. I may continue to post type case studies. Typography is one of my favorite things within the parks but this is a new chapter in my life and one that I've been working 12 long and hard years for. I hope to create things that you want and will allow you to take home a bit of the magic you experienced on your vacations, trips and outings.

I thank you all again for the kind words, the support, the encouragement and the love you've shown over the past few years. Please keep in touch and be sure to follow me on twitter as I will always be around.

Your greatest fan,
Richard

SpectroMagic

Welcome back to Designerland. Yes, I know...it's been ages since I've posted anything. Life does carry on and between my full time job, freelance clients and renovating a home there's not enough hours in the day for font finding and other fun stuff. Granted, I have enough shirt concepts in the wings to last me until next Christmas but I just can't keep posting that. I'm not a one trick pony, there's many tricks up this magician's sleeve.

Speaking of fonts, I just locked into snatching up a ton of new photos from Epcot and hope to continue our Designerland Typography Tour of Epcot Center come late this fall. In the mean time here's a new shirt concept based on one of my favorite parades, SpectroMagic.

The main logo of the parade along with the Mickey globe icon and original WDW Resort logo have all been treated with a vintage "Hamilton Type" letterpress like look. The color palette is a simple 2 color, over print method in aqua and carrot orange. I was channeling my inner Kevin and Jody when I picked this palette out.

 Well that does it for this installment. Tune in soon for more fun Designerland offerings.

Twilight Bark!

Bryce, a fellow Designerland follower contacted me over the weekend in regards to his KickStarter concept that he needs help with. Sound out the twilight bark!


He's currently writing an epub for Fathers & Sons who enjoy Disney parks, the book contains fun facts intermingled with games families can play while in line for an attraction or just walking through the parks. Who says you need interactive touch screens and digital queue playgrounds to keep kids entertained???

Check it out and help support a dream:  http://kck.st/18fEw87 

A small summer side project...

Summer's basically here and I've been overly swamp with work...both my day time work and my freelance work not to mention I'm still renovating a house!!!! I promise I'll get back to Designerland as soon as I can.  In the meantime I'll let your imagination wonder for a few.....

Tune in later this fall for more on this jaunty project! See you all soon!!!!

Different Disney Strokes

Hope everyone had a swell weekend. Things have been crazy around here so alas no new font case studies...soon I hope.

Over the past weekend I did have some time to do a little jaunty treasure hunting at some antique stores around the area. If you follow me on twitter then you saw my finds!  For some reason I always find things in sets of threes. It's kind of become a game. Once we find one thing we know somewhere, somehow two more should follow....they usually do.

When I'm out and about looking for various vintage theme park merchandise I tend to always come across tons of non theme park Disney antiques. The one thing I find so interesting are the various different Walt Disney logos/signatures used on the packaging.

Most all of them have the look and feel of the free flowing, bubbly Walt script but some are vary unique in their brush stokes, weight and height.

I've started collecting photos of these various Walt scripts while out and about. Are any of them real? Are they all fake? Who knows, either way I love the feel and look of them.

One logo script I came across a few months back I recreated and changed into a new vintage (double entendre) logo for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Can anyone guess what type of product this original logo was used for?

Update!

For those of you who supported me and my blog by snatching up the new addition of the tiki pineapple whip tee...I wanted to give you an update!

Shirts have been printed and I'm in the process of packing them! Hold tight...tropical goodness to ensue!

Poster Design

New poster concept  I worked up....what do you think?