I’m in uni today printing two study posters from the recent trip to DLP: Walt’s Resturant and The Cable Car Bakery. I think The Cable Car Bake Shop is maybe my origin story for loving the detail in Disney Parks. This little coffee shop on Main Street has the job of a place inside the park, when you first enter, to get coffee and wonder down to the castle to take your photos. Probably originally meant for mum and dad to refuel before their kids ran off to the hub! In Walt Disney World this type of place, although not called Cable Car and a lot bigger (as is everything in WDW) is an actual Starbucks much to the dismay of many guests at the time it opened.
But this small coffee shop that serves a single purpose, is so elaborately themed to turn of the century San Francisco and so beautifully detailed, I think this is where I first understood that every little detail is thought about to tell the story, to immerse the guest and to not leave anything as ‘standard’ as it would be in the real world. It’s something that not many people notice and really doesn’t ‘need’ to be done, but they have and they do and they take the time and spend the money to make these places so overly themed that the illusion is never broken.
The second part of the day is a tutorial with Mike. Unfortunately it’s only 15 minutes long. I’d love to have a full hour to go over everything I’ve done so far, but I guess that would be possible with everyone on the course! I’ll obviously add to this blog post conversation but just wanted to get some thoughts down before I go in.
The main things I want to get guidance on are:
Is this Grammar of Ornament a good final direction to be heading? I mean would i get good grades to do a parody of that book but for Themed Entertainment?
I’m still in two minds about the conversation I had last week where Mike liked the draft paper styling of the posters. On one hand I really like things being neat and final and printed well and on good paper etc. because this project is about elevating the design work that is not usually elevated, and making it like that would achieve that. But on the other hand, there’s a story and theme behind making the book or posters have a story, like they were found in a collection of work about design or something. Linking the whole story/themeing ideas back into the project. Which I like, but I want to make sure doesn’t come off as cheesy or cheap.
The other thing I should mention is that I’ve possibly got some work through Sarah Heal, one of the peoples I’ve interviewed and if that pays off should I include it as practise research?
Post Tutorial
So I showed Mike everything I’ve been working on, the whole folder fro my MA and this blog, but obviously didn’t have enough time to go through it in detail, but all was met with positivity.
As far as the questions I brought to the table were concerned, the first one about TGOO was fundamentally ‘yes thats a good idea and will work as a hand in.’ Really the main this about that was the the positionally of me doing this project. Things like not using colour, picking out specific things to focus on, these are all seeing the world of theme parks through a Graphic Design lens. It’s me researching this, me speaking to people and me analysing the designs. If it was Disney, it would be propaganda. It would be ‘look how great we are’ now please buy tickets and come to the parks?! But I’m looking at this stuff for myself, as myself. Im not trying to push an agenda so that makes it an interesting study. Otherwise it would be a straight up documentary which wouldn’t be as interesting.
In regards to the format of the paper of the posters and the book, I think the best way forward is to have the posters as a limited edition of a set of posters. And the book be it’s own thing with it’s own back story that is themed to this nostalgic, old fashioned collection of a study. Which ties in nicely with the idea of story telling and theming that I’m researching.
What I need to do is start doing some work on what that would look like. Find some paper and inkjet some pages to be bound together. Look into archival books and see what they look like and how they are bound and presented.
And lastly, yes include any work that comes from this project, during the project in the contextual report as practise research. Which means I’ll need to blog the experience of doing that work.
I think the overall takeaway was that I’m on the right path, I have a lot of time left, this only needs to be a ‘prototype’ of a final project, because it’s a masters, I’m ‘a country mile ahead’ so I’ve got time and I just need to keep heading in this direction and start thinking about the final product.