It wasn't a story - just a Twitter post.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
News Morocco Pavilion redevelopment
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
It wasn't a story - just a Twitter post.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Thanks—found it!
So, this isn't much of an improvement. First, the word on the wall is now بهارات, which means "spices" in Modern Standard Arabic but isn't what they use in Morocco, where عطریة is the preferred term:
Second, the texts (both on the wall and the cart) present themselves as something a market trader might have written by hand, but they are simply painted versions of an Arabic computer font. It gives the same nonsensical effect as the signs below would if they were written in a neat approximation of Times New Roman:
All in all, a very poor effort on Disney's part. They would have done better to leave the wall and cart uninscribed after they got rid of the initial miswritten text.
Last edited:
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
It's actually a different word altogether now, and not an especially appropriate one given the Moroccan theme, but at least the letters are properly formatted!
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
These poor people are trying their best. It's not like they have resources they could pull and do it properly.
Oh wait. They do.
It's disappointing.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I just don't get it. You'd think they'd make absolutely sure that the redone version was faultless. It's beyond embarrassing at this point.
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
They spelled "keister" wrong so this shouldn't surprise anyone. If this was some massive new build then I could excuse it but the fact these are small, rolling changes (literally paint) to existing infrastructure then I'm failing to understand why they can have these issues. You know this stuff gets reviewed by a group before getting "okayed" yet issues like this are still happening.
Not to get out of line (or political/whatever you'd call it) but with the large inclusivity push they're having, you'd think they would really stress the importance of getting this right the first time around.
I'm not stressed or anything over this, just disappointed in the company with all of the oddities over the previous few years (Epcot overhaul, attraction build time, shear amount of lag with projects, show quality, the freaking 50th. Other parks are seriously showing WDW up, hard).
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
If it was done with a stencil, it's also possible the installer just did it backwards. Wouldn't excuse the weird spacing, though.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
It's the bolded that makes me surprised that Disney could have screwed this up so much. Mistakes like "keister" I can overlook, because the stakes are really low, but when dealing with other cultures—and especially the culture of one of the most misunderstood regions of the world—Disney should leave nothing to chance.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
That particular error has already been corrected. The mistake clearly happened at the design level, not during the painting itself.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Right, I just mean that the first mistake may have been an installation or communication issue (e.g. the order of characters was relayed to the installer, but he or she didn't realize that it had to read from right to left) rather than a design issue. This has no bearing on the other problems or subsequent issues.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
The first mistake is very common and happens because certain computer programs can't handle Arabic well. It can't have been an installation error, because the correct design would have shown the letters joined together.
Some examples of the same mistake beyond Disney:
(Should be written مرحبا [ETA: The Hebrew is backwards too])
(Should be written لغة)
(Should be written مارتین)
Last edited:
Sharon&Susan
Well-Known Member
No Ragrets.
(Should be written مارتین)
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
It would be a big draw, if for no other reason than the lack of rides in World Showcase and the fact that it is actually good.
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
Yes, it's very puzzling. Can Disney really not find some Moroccan people to run this by?
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Sorry to (badly) Photoshop your image, but this altered version gives a good sense of how incongruous the font looks to someone familiar with Arabic script:
It's even more egregious considering that they bothered to make the French look appropriately handwritten.
castlecake2.0
Well-Known Member
In Le Cellier there is a plaque that says North West Territory instead of Northwest Territories. We have brought it up many times, but it’s been there for 20 years now.
castlecake2.0
Well-Known Member
The merchant who owns this cart wanted a big and clear sign for passerby’s to see what he/she is selling. He/she wrote the sign in big bright letters to attract attention. His coworker that runs the cart on nights and weekends decided that the sign should be bilingual, and added to the sign, though he does not have a steady hand which resulted in the more hand drawn look.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
I don't feel like this comparison tracks. Times New Roman has visual artifacts like serifs that specifically indicate the painter is superfluously mimicking the engraving techniques that have made their way into various typeset fonts over the years. The Arabic script used here, however, could be the natural result of a series of strokes from a calligraphy brush. Even if it is a common, easily identifiable font for a person who regularly reads Arabic script, a more apt comparison would probably be something like Brush Script, where many would recognize it, but it also wouldn't be a logical impossibility that it had been produced freehand. It still breaks the illusion for the viewer who recognizes the font and should therefore be avoided, but I don't think it's as egregious as this comparison makes it seem. I will however agree that the juxtaposition of careful Arabic calligraphy, stenciled ornamentation, and inartful French lettering is weird, though.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Sorry, but you’re mistaken. Calligraphic Arabic would never look like this. The spacing is wrong and the letters, while neat, are inelegant. One wouldn’t expect such a text—on a wall, above a spice cart—to be written in a calligraphic style anyway, but rather in a script that resembles handwriting. What you see on the wall looks exactly as I have characterised it: like something written in Microsoft Word. It’s a fail.
ETA: The five samples of text in the image below give a better sense of what I’m talking about. The font they’ve used at Epcot is equivalent in effect to the top two samples: it is the unmistakable product of a computer. The three other samples (especially the one labelled “Arabic Typesetting”) are much closer in look to actual calligraphy (which, again, also wouldn’t be right for the spice cart).
Last edited: