Tutorial 22nd Oct

Today felt like a good day. I had two things happening simultaneously. I wanted to get back into the screen printing studio and play around, and also a tutorial.

First off the screen printing. This was a bit of a cheat, as I was printing a poster I made a few years ago, but have always wanted to screen. It’s also a cheat as I’m going to sell these prints on my Etsy store, but thats by the by. This print was a lot harder than the print last week, or at least harder in different ways. It’s only A3 so easier by being a smaller surface area to print. But harder because it’s a lot more black and therefore a lot more ink to pull. I was finding that because the top had lots of ink it would run out by the time I got to the bottom and so the bottom third of the print didn’t get enough of the finer detail registered.

But this is all part of the learning process. I did quite a few prints so I would have enough to sell and also some of them bled out or didn’t pull properly, so need to top up the number. Screen printing hurts my fingers. I wonder if thats normal or if I’m pressing too hard?

The second part was my tutorial With Mike. I explained the experiments I had been working on over the last couple weeks. The paper forced prospective model that didn’t work out super well. I said I’m planning on returning to that, but not sure when. Then the pop up thing that was very difficult and annoying. And then finally the screen printed poster study of Dapper Dans. This went down very well and we spoke about information design and how to translate information into digestible presentations. Which is a fundamental component of what a graphic designer does. Mike put me onto Marie Neurath and her husband, who’s name I didn’t write down, who pioneered information design in the 1920s in Venice. So I need to look into them. Also Gerd Antz. I also want to look at a book called Graphic DEsign Manual by Armin Hoffman, not that it has a direct relationship with what I’m doing but looks like it covers a lot of bases.

I had a thought the other day about making trading cards based on the examples of design I’ve photographed over the years I’ve been going to the parks. A lot of what I’ve read about the emotional component of a Disney park, is about reassurance. As apposed to escapism. And how a lot of that is achieved is through the detail in the parks. And it’s the details that I first found super interesting, and I think where this project is focusing. And so taking those details and shining a light on them, or contextualising them as top trump cards or trading cards could be a really fun thing to do.

Mike liked the poster and agreed that I could produce a series of them as a document of the attractions that I could then use to make critical analysis of the way graphic design is used by the imagineers. I’ve been reaching out to park locals around the world to try and get some more photos to work from, so hopefully they’ll get me some stuff to work on soon. In the meantime I’ll work on these trading cards.

One idea that was discussed was Victorian tunnel cards as a way to show forced perspective that would fix the ground level issue from the card cut out experiments. Thats something I’ll research and play around with.

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Practical Research

Last week’s class involved us talking about out proposals from last year, what we thought about them now, what we’ve done since then and where we’re planning on going with everything.

I created a small presentation deck to explain my thoughts and plans which was great to put everything down on paper. I feel keeping everything in a note book, out of order, doesn’t help me get things in a fixed state so everything remains in flux.

The main parts of my presentation were;

• my current question: To what extent is Visual Culture used in Transmedia Storytelling in Disney Parks.

• What that means. So fundamentally, there are two parts to this. One is Imagineers, the company that design and build everything a guest sees in a Disney park, cruise line or store. The second part is transmedia storytelling and specifically Spatial Transmedia Storytelling as detailed in Rebecca William’s book. Being a story told in a 3D environment in which the audience discovers the story beats for themselves.

• There is also the Visual Culture section of the question which also needs researching.

During the proposal I outlined the idea of case studies of existing attractions in the parks now. I did this with Dapper Dans from Main Street in Disneyland Paris (DLP) which currently involves recreating the design work within and on the facade of that attraction. The next step of this is to analyse these designs and talk about there origins and influences and philosophies.

Mike, our new course leader, brought up a few key points of this, the main one being that I need to make sure this isn’t a purely research and documentary. I need to create and respond to what i’m learning. He challenged us to produce something for 2 weeks time (one week of this writing) that we’ve made with our hands. and if we can, away from computers!

My first experiment was to create a small model of Main Street based on this image:

Disney use a technique called Force Prospective. It involves making things that are higher up a building, smaller and darker in colour. This gives the illusion of scale that isn’t in proportion to the real world measurements. This is also achieved on Main Street in particular by having the street incline slightly and then go down before the castle, in order to make the castle seem bigger and further away. My plan was to divide the street into sections and make those sections out of card that can be placed further away from each other, to illustrate this idea. I started by making a rough version of this but instantly realised that I needed to use the incline of the street to make the effect work correctly. Something that will take a minute to figure out.

My second option was to make some screen prints. I feel like I’ve met Mike half way on his request to leave computers behind, as I’d already started making the case study designs for Dapper Dans, so I tasked myself to finish these and create a case study poster and then screen that poster.

The designs took a lot longer that I expected but luckily I got them done in time, as I needed to get them printed digitally in order to screen them. I also had the issue I knew was going to happen, in that I did my screen printing induction last academic year in January, and I’d meant to come back and print the whole rest of the year and the stars didn’t align.

I explained to Matt, that I think the design I’d done was far too detailed for a first time screening, but it’s all a learning curve, so I might as well give it a go and see what happens! Using the video I shot in January and making notes about it on the train this morning, and with Matts help, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Matt even told me he was impressed!! I didn’t lose any detail, apart from the tiny parts I expected to, and apart from a couple prints they all turned out great!

I think this gives me a good basis to build a case study from, which I should do next.

Ongoing Research

Today was the introduction day to the academic year at university. Having spoken to another member of the part time, year 2 team (there are only 3 of us) we both seem to have had big plans to do loads of reading over the summer break to get a head start on the work ahead, but haven’t quite met our expectations.

I am happy that I have started reading and watching and making notes, but had planned to do a lot more, but that’s to be understood.

What I have done is make a lot of notes about the various areas of study outlined in the previous blog, and those notes and useful and important to have. What I think i need to start moving toward is some kind of statement or product that is what i have leaned from them.

Similar to my research project last year, i spent that time researching illustration within the logo designing word and taught myself some fundamentals about illustration and how to apply them to brand identity. I created a small zine that based as a ‘how to’ guide to what i had learned that i could refer back to when i needed a refresh. I think i need to start doing the same.

Although these would be ongoing. I certainly don’t think I’m at an end point with any of the avenues of study but i do feel like I’m a little all over the place, so a WIP set of posters or a similar zine might be a good idea to take stock of where i cam from time to time.

I still have a large list of reading and research to do before that, so need to make a dent in that first.

Beginning - The Outline

I should have started writing this a few weeks ago before i started working toward the resolution of my thesis question, but i got excited about what i was working on and didn’t. So I’m starting now.

My proposed question was: “To what extent is Visual Culture used in Transmedia Storytelling in Disney Parks?” - simply put ‘How do the team behind the creating Disney theme parks, use Graphic Design within the worlds they create?.

I think the first thing to do is to break the question into it’s constituent pieces and then create plans of action based on those sub categories.

Imagineering - This is the name of the company that creates everything a guest see’s within a Disney park. I need to start by researching this company. Outline their history, why they were created, company hierarchy, where graphic designer sit within the structure and what that company structure is. It is also important to understand who they outsource to, who outsources to them and what they do outside of the theme park industry.

Process - The primary method of doing this is reading. There are a lot of books, both official and unofficial that discuss the methods and work of Imagineers. There are also a number of documentaries, again official and unofficial that discuss this. I also want to reach out to people who work there and try to get some dialogue happening about the project. I think this may by one of the harder parts of the project as WDI are notoriously cagey about giving away secrets and I’m sure people would be nervous about talking to me if it would endanger their job.

Visual Culture - I touched on this in the proposal stage of my work, but i need to go deeper into the subject and learn as much as i can about it. It’s history, it’s processes, the key players and the disputes amongst them. This again will be done through lots of reading, watching and making.

Case Studies - In my proposal i outlined the way i would produce case studies about specific areas, stores, attractions or lands within the Disney parks. The brief version of this in the proposal was based on what i thought this should look like, but i know need to research how this could or should be done academically.

Upskilling - there are many things used within the creative process of WDI that i want to upskill myself in in order to better relate to the process and fundamentally inform my case studies of the their work. The main ones of these are: Sign writing, colour theory and typography. I’m sure more will come up the more i work on this and they will be addressed as i do. One other that comes to mind is poster creation.

Discourse - one area that proved difficult to research during the proposal stage of this project was the other side of the argument. I am a self identified Disney nerd and I’m aware that i have biases when it comes to the parks. It’s important that i research the people and their ideas who feel the opposite to me to get a better understanding of the area as a whole. The issue i came up against was that there is a lot of discourse when it comes to The Walt Disney company, especially within their feature films. Racism and sexism are rife within them and no one could argue that they aren’t. But I’m not looking to research their media output. There is obviously a link between the parks and the films, but that’s not what is interesting to me. So i need to do a deep dive into actual works of writing about why people don’t like that parks. Not just ‘it was expensive and my kids went crazy’ which is what most blogs subscribe to.

I am more than aware that i am doing exactly what i was told not to do, which is to start this project before September, but i have a lot of reading to do and i am a very slow reader. I have some of these books to hand and so i want to get them out of the way so to speak. Just so i can get moving with other areas as soon as possible.