Today was a tough one! I was in back in the printing studio, screening my third poster. This time a Mark Twain Riverboat study. Non said this was the best poster I’ve made so far, so I was very happy with how the actual design work turned out for this, but todays printing didn’t go super well. I think I got a few good prints off so that’s all I really need, but it was very hot in the studio and the ink kept drying out so I could only get 4 or 5 prints done before I had to clean the screen out. I’ve kept the screen so I might try again in a couple weeks when it’s not as hot.
I’m now at a situation where I’ve run out of images from people so I can’t move forward with any more posters until I do. The situation with Kevin continues to be odd. He’s suddenly got back in touch saying he got ill and thats why he ghosted me, and has sent some phone photos whilst in the park but still hasn’t sent anything to the Dropbox folder! It’s very annoying and very weird. He showed me a photo of an accident form from something that happened in the parks and I saw his information and age, so I do know he’s a real person, and is 30 years old, but is maybe just an odd person. I haven’t heard from the other people in a couple weeks so I need to chase them up.
In the mean time, I should start refocusing on the reading and planning part of this project, because I can feel that falling behind. I was speaking with Non the other day about the book, or whatever the outcome of this thing is…probably a book, and the sections it would be. I would want to aim it at a general audience initially and then go into the design stuff later in the book. So the intro would be about Walt, his life and philosophy’s. Why he decided to make Disneyland and what it’s primary function was. Then about Imagineering. Why and how it was set up, who the key players are and what they’re responsible for. The I would go into the case studies. Hopefully I’ll have about 10 of them from around the world, but this is something I need to break down. They’ll be what we are looking at, what it’s function is, what era is it set it, what story is it telling and how was it made. Who is it aimed at? What are the designers trying to make you feel, based on either knowing that from other sources, or what peoples’ take aways from it are. Maybe this could be some more primary research with Disney fans?
The last part of the book would be some kind of statement about the philosophy of visual design in imagineering. I would love to take that project as a prototype to work on a full coffee table book for Disney, but thats maybe getting ahead of myself.