Designing Disney

Designing Disney

Designing Disney sets into history and puts into context the extraordinary contributions of the late John Hench, who, at the age of 94, still came into his office at Imagineering each day.  His principles of theme park design, character design, and use of color made him a legendary figure, not only for Disney fans but also for students and aficionados of architecture, engineering, and design.

            Designing Disney reveals the magic behind John's great discoveries and documents his groundbreaking in several key areas: "Design Philosophy" examines the values, attitudes, aesthetics, and logic that went into the original concepts for Disney theme parks. In "The Art of the Show" and "The Art of Color," Hench reveals the essence of what makes the parks work so well. And in "The Art of Character," he lets the reader in on the how and why of the Disney characters' inherent popularity-their timeless human traits, archetypal shape and gestures that suggest these qualities graphically, and their emotional resonance in our lives.

Customer Review: Designing Disney by John Hench
I took a few minutes to read all the reviews of this book first, and I must agree with the previous reviewers. They were all spot on about this book. My company is in the theme park design business so we naturally gravitate towards any Disney related books that we can learn from, and speaking from that "point of view"... anyone interested in "details" about how Disney thinks and works (How their designs happen) should certainly add this one to their library. As time goes on the 'greats' who created the Disney magic are leaving us one by one, and from what we (at Denny Magic Studios) observe in the theme park business...Other parks are really not paying enough attention to what these old timers did, and what they had to say... So in our humble opinion, we think that the existence of these written "words of wisdom" are really important jewels that should be studied and put to work well into the future. Right now in 2009 we are all in this "rough" economy, but things WILL improve soon and pundits have said that we are moving from an industrial society to a creative society, and creativity needs to be fed with a healthy dose of entertainment. Fellows like John Hench had the right ideas, and those ideas and techniques are even more important to preserve, and put to good use... today, more than ever before.
Customer Review: Of the Disney books out there, this is the best.
A bit lacking in the real nuts and bolts, but this is clearly a well done overview into the minds of some of the best Disney has to offer. Easy to read, and also a pleasure to read, left me wishing that disney appoints some one to really pick John's mind in case he leaves us some day, now that would be a tragedy, if we loose 1/2 of what this man has learned over a delightful lifetime of serving his customers and guests. Reading this brought me back to the B/W days of TV waiting for Walt, but Walt couldn't have ackomplished anything if it wasn't for the love of the work these people do, and have for the work they love to do.


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