This week and next week and last week are / were easter break. Last week I got spent my time finishing up the posters from Paris. Well not finishing up but getting the current ones up together. I was spending a lot of time working on the posters and getting a little tunnel vision getting them completed, so I’ve decided to take a break from them for a minute to get some other things sorted that I’ve been putting off. I’ve got 4 or 5 left to do but I really need to start thinking about / working on the companion book and the analysis writing of each one. I obviously did a first draft of jungle cruise but I need to flesh that out and make a system to write about these studies.
I was in Portsmouth yesterday with a plan to get all the remaining posters printed and then spend the afternoon in the library. But it didn’t exactly go that well. I was rushed for time printing and so made some mistakes setting up the screens. Namely the hotel one came out with lines that were way too thin and wouldn’t have shown up on the print. So I washed that out, spent ages on the uni computers to remake some of the patterns and then reprint and prescreen it. I think I messed up the emulsion as it didn’t cover the whole screen so I had to do two passes. We’ll have to see when I print.
The reason I havent printed yet was because I went to get some paper and the art shop was closed! Awesome. So I’ll finish that up next week.
My plan for the library was to knock out some of the non disney reading I’ve had on my list for ages. I feel like I’m getting to a place where I’ve read and watched and listened to almost everything I can at this point, and it’s starting to feel like I’m just hearing the same information over and over. I have got another interview lined up next week so that’ll be good. I think once I’ve finished the last of the books and podcasts I have on the go now, I’ll draw a line under the disney of it all and focus on the academic stuff. If more interviews come up, I’ll do those but we’ll have to see what happens with those.
The main ares I was covering in todays reading were Psychogepgraphy and Informational graphics.
It was all very interesting and I enjoy reading about psychogeography, but what I was finding was that it was difficult to replace it to the wider project. I was reading about it because I was directed there and so wanted to make sure I covered those bases, but didn’t know exactly it related.
That was until I found a passage on Disney theme parks in the book I was reading! In Colin Ellard’s Places of the Heart he says “..the Disney enterprise can be considered as a successful laboratory or clinic that has focused on questions about what makes us like a place.” It goes on, but thats the main gist. There are also sections on how shapes in architecture make us feel and how well apply intentionality to basic shapes. It made me think of It’s a Small World and the anthropomorphised clock tower. Hows it’s all squares and circles and a happy face with bright colours to involve childlike joy.
There was also a great section about the ‘Overview Effect’ which was based on how astronauts feel when they see the earth for the first time from space. How the sense of awe transcends our own bodies. And I think this lines up with how the ‘big reveals’ of the parks function. The way you are introduced to the park is like a movie scene; starts with a detail, widens on Main Street and then as you round the corner the reveal of the castle gives you a sense of space and the whole park and the magic awaiting you. This sense of awe is purposefully built up and delivered by design to evoke these feelings about where you are and what you’re about to do.