I have a lot of qualms about the authenticity of graphic design and graphic art direction in Disney Parks. In my mind, if you are in that role at Imagineering, you should be an absolute geek -- not just about historic design and illustration styles, but the materials, mediums, methods, and historic technologies involved. A great person for that job is not just a technically productive designer with good taste and a sharp portfolio, but someone who loves history and research and is obsessive about "getting it right." You know the people building LARPing costumes as a hobby and who geek out about the authenticity of every detail -- the right kind of button or stitching technique or color of fabric dye for the time period? Those kind of people.
I was recently at the Swiss Museum for Paper, Writing and Printing in Basel, Switzerland. It's the kind of place you can see the tools, equipment, techniques, and materials used in printing and book-binding going back to medieval times. It's a hands-on place, you can make paper and print things yourself using old presses. And the docents will patiently explain everything. The graphic designers from Imagineering should be spending time there, or at other places like that.
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Having said that, Disney recently installed a banner in front of The Golden Horseshoe at Disneyland that blew me away. From afar, it's surprisingly authentic as a hand-painted late-1800s banner; I couldn't believe the simplicity and restraint. Nothing extra: no unnecessary borders, shadows, embellishments. And to top things off, a closer look reveals it's not just a solid opaque "paint" in the letters, rather it has a variegated look when the sun shines through, as if it was hand-painted (and maybe it was?!), so the coverage/density is appropriately inconsistent. Did the designer research what types of brushes were used by sign painters in the Old West, and when a squirrel brush would've been used vs. a hog bristle brush? You know,
geek out? Maybe so! Anyway, bravo Disney! More of this please.
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