EPCOT Test Track to be reimagined

HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
The sign looks very... pedestrian.

Sad Koala GIF
 
DreamfinderGuy

DreamfinderGuy

Well-Known Member
Mr. Sullivan said:
Its not the most inspired sign in the world. It’s just another in a long line of kind of boring signage that has been placed outside of this building since it was built. I can’t think of one single marquee for any version of this ride or WoM that really looked anything other than a little clinical.
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I think you'd be hard pressed to call the other signs boring, short of maybe WoM. I've seen a lot of people say the WoM sign is a silver rectangle like the silver rectangle for TT 3.0, and I wouldn't rule out that there's inspiration there, but the sign for WoM had more going on than meets the eye. It was curved and had a reflective border, not just a box like TT 3.0. It was low to the ground so that you could see the atrium from the park and vice versa. Above everything else, it fit into the established Future World graphic design. If Future World went back to all their signs being set up like TT 3.0 I would have little issue with that, unfortunately this is now an exception rather than the rule.

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The original plan was to keep that sign around and just change it to say Test Track. That was a bad idea considering the design principles that made the WoM sign were no longer relevant at this point. Hence they didn't do it.

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I've made it no secret how I feel about TT 1.0 on here, but the single thing I will give it credit for is having easily the coolest marquee of the lot. It plays right into the graphic design of the attraction with it being designed like a road, and the sharp perspective curve gives it depth and velocity. The dotted line draws your eye right past the GM logo into the Test Track logo. It's all perfectly framed and just an all around really pleasing and well designed sign.

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2.0's sign gave the logo a cool curved base to sit on (real ones know how fun it was to frame the secondary building sign between the E and S on the logo in photos 😝) and had a non-logo centerpiece added on with the car statue. Just like before I think this plays well into the attraction's new aesthetic, but the car statue is especially fun because it's vague. You're designing your own vehicle in the attraction, so the car on the sign is just a bare bones sculpture to evoke the design studio and the feeling of "this is the shape a car is born from". The lighting here was fun too, but a lot of that sadly came from the canopy and I'd rather lose the fun lighting than keep that ugly old canopy.

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The 3.0 marquee is a USB stick rising from the ground with the Test Track logo tacked onto it. It's maybe not the worst thing they could have done, but there's nothing to make it stand out or preview what's in the building like the prior Test Track signs. There's nothing to make it look cool. If EPCOT were still in an era where all pavilion marquees were logos on shapes with a sponsor tacked on I might feel differently, but unless they plan to redo the other marquees like this it has become an outlier. If we're comparing this to World of Motion then fine, it's maybe an upgrade, but the park has gone through design changes since then as has this building. It's a downgrade from its immediate two predecessors.

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DreamfinderGuy

DreamfinderGuy

Well-Known Member
JohnD said:
Follow up. "Shop" is usually used for where you take your car for repairs. "I'm taking my car to the shop."
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This reminds me of how the original TT 2.0 shop was called "After Market" before it was changed to SIMporium. Both of these are perfectly acceptable generic gift shop names but have a cute automotive connotation. I can only imagine After Market did not last long because GM wasn't thrilled with their name being tied to something called After Market.
 
JohnD

JohnD

Well-Known Member
DreamfinderGuy said:
This reminds me of how the original TT 2.0 shop was called "After Market" before it was changed to SIMporium. Both of these are perfectly acceptable generic gift shop names but have a cute automotive connotation. I can only imagine After Market did not last long because GM wasn't thrilled with their name being tied to something called After Market.
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Well, yeah. "After market" connotes cheap. Dirt cheap used cars. I'm surprised Disney even suggested it.
 
WDWFREAK53

WDWFREAK53

Well-Known Member
Sir_Cliff said:
I really disagree this is worse or 'cheaper' than the original concept. I think it fits the aesthetic of the building and whatever they are now calling Future World than the other version, which looks a lot more in the style of the 1990s-era Future World.

I get the impression that for a lot of Disney fans the bigger, more colourful, and more cluttered something is, the more 'themed' it is.
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Again..."my opinion"

The entire project's central spine is based on colored lighting... This version removes any sense of additional colors and lighting and falls back on the blue which is really no different than 2.0. It's essentially a pillar with "TEST TRACK" in blue on it.

Nothing seemed overly cluttered with the concept art signage.
 
eddie104

eddie104

Well-Known Member
DreamfinderGuy said:
This is a really boring marquee compared to the previous two and even the one from the original 3.0 concept art. Hopefully this is not our first indicator of quality of what's been installed inside
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You have to remember Disney isn’t paying for any of this. If GM wanted a “fancier” sign they would’ve increased their budget for this project.
DreamfinderGuy said:
The 3.0 marquee is a USB stick rising from the ground with the Test Track logo tacked onto it
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This is hilarious. 😂
 

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