DCA Then and Now - Part 3: The Disney Is in the Details.
It’s been said many times before that what the Disney Imagineers excel at in their designs is an attention to detail that is rarely matched. Sure, they’ve got deeper pockets than most (so they can spend more money, and thus more time). But there’s a genuine dedication to “getting it right” that’s part of the workplace culture, and DCA’s Buena Vista Street is no different.
Right when you enter there’s a re-dedication plaque at the main flagpole in the plaza. This is the opportunity for the company to formal rebrand the park with a new wordmark. They also dropped the possessive “Disney’s” for “Disney” which is strange to me, because it’s still Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom out in Florida. Maybe next to Disneyland they wanted to keep that consistency.
This plaque quotes Michael Eisner’s remarks from the 2001 park dedication. Which is not too dissimilar from Walt Disney’s original speech from 1955. Eisener’s has more “dreams” and “dreamers” though.
The street sign marking Buena Vista is stylized but based on historical examples. This is nice touch that immediately distinguishes this themed area from it’s older cousin Main Street U.S.A. Here a portion of Los Angeles is being depicted, as opposed to a small rural town. This kind of official metal signage immediately communicates that we’re in a larger, more urban place.
Same thing with the trash cans. Disney is known for elaborately theming these receptacles. Here they are appropriately civic, baring the slogan “Keep Buena Vista Street Beautiful.” Like the street sign, this adds a cityscape sensibility, as if there’s a public works department.
And even the sewer drains, which I almost missed at my feet. They read EAST JORDAN IRON WORKS, which is a real company founded in Michigan in 1883. I’m not sure if these drains are antiques or not, like the gas lamps on Main Street U.S.A. which were found in Baltimore (they would have been sold for scrap and Emile Kuri bought them by the pound). They might be thematic replicas. Not sure.
And of course, if you’re big enough to have a public works department, you’re going to have a Chamber of Commerce. Since my background is graphic design and I teach coursework in typography, of course I’m going to dial into these lettering choices. Sometimes Disney gets it pretty right. Here, not so much. This looks like a Trajan with some modified characters to make it feel more Arts and Crafts.
Across the way at the Red Car Trolley station, the lettering is really off (is that Gill Sans?) But the overall design is a decent lift.
Emblem for the Pacific Electric Railway Company. Wikimedia / Public Domain.
When you compare it to the company’s original logo, the reference is obvious. But here the typography totally dates to the first half of the twentieth century. They could (should) have done better with this one.
An interesting thing that’s been pointed out to me more than once is that the logo is repeated upstairs in the nearby Sepulveda Bldg. While I don’t approve of the use of Copperplate Gothic for the title lettering, this is actually a clever trick.
There’s no office up there. See, it’s a stairway to nowhere. As The Imagineering Field to Disney California Adventure notes,
A common scenic device used to create the impression that the “world” presented in the Park extends beyond what we literally built is the inclusion of “stairways to nowhere.” These elements, along with faux doorways and additional graphics, give a guest the subconscious belief that there’s more going on behind these walls than meets the eye.
Some of these “additional graphics” are quite beautiful. You see this at Disney parks around the world, and to a lesser extent in their competitors’ designs—actual hand painted lettering. Many years ago, before personal computers took over graphic design, Disneyland had its own sign department for all of this stuff.
The typefaces in the “Elias and Company” advertisement appear to be from venerable Letterhead Fonts, which I’ve seen used more and more at the Disneyland Resort over the past fifteen years or so. In a former life I was an exhibit designer at the Oakland Museum of California, and we used many of their faces in their Gallery of California History.
Disney Studio references abound. The “Deliveries Only” here reminds me of a script from the House Industries Sign Painter Collection, which I’ve also used before on projects.
I also missed this nice nod on the gasoline pumps the first time. It’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as a kind of “Sir Speedy” mechanic character.
I have mixed feelings on this sign. The reference is to the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles where Walt, his brother Roy, and their animation staff spent a lot of time. Nice. But the design is sort of a mishmash of historic authenticity and contemporary design. “Five & Dime” is an okay sans serif, but not executed very well. “Los Feliz” is rendered in a very bold script which strikes me as too current. Doesn’t looks right, yet the materials smack of the right period vibes.
All the references to Disney and his father are obvious. But a good deal of the easter eggs on Buena Vista Street make nods to the studio history which are more obscure. This sign references the Holly Vermont Realty Company, which shared an office with the Disneys when they were starting out.
Lessing, Kamen, and James were all company attorneys during the early days. Gunther Lessing was hired by Disney to work on copyright law, specifically that of the Mickey Mouse character. He later became vice president and general counsel for the studios. From 1932 to 1949, Disney Legend Kay Kamen was the exclusive character merchandising representative for the company. And Disney Legend Cyril James—known as “Roy Disney’s European Counterpart”—ran Disney’s international distribution and merchandising from London for decades.
The sign is rendered again in the lovely work of Letterhead Fonts.
Here at the lockers building is something fun that you don’t see anywhere else on Buena Vista Street. Somewhat related to mimetic (programmatic) architecture, this is a sign rendered as an object relevant to the business. Although the lockers inside are all modern digital combination units, when Disneyland opened in 1955 they had real keys. So this is a great nod that also places us in the 1920s and 1930s, when programmatic work was at its height across America.
Inside this corner market there’s some great detail. The wares are of the grab ‘n’ go variety—fruit, chips, bottled water, and soft drinks. The refrigerators look like period ice boxes, and there are wooden crates throughout. A nice touch is that Cuties Citrus is a real contemporary company selling Mandarin oranges, but their logo has been tweaked to look like an early twentieth century fruit crate label.
Even stacked fruit cans on the shelves with period-accurate brand labels. This is something that sets Disney apart from their theme park competitors. This is not even a sundries shop. It’s just a place to grab a banana or a bag of chips. And yet there’s all this attention to the propping and historical bits.
Some nice script on the outside awning which might also be from Letterhead Fonts.
There’s a typographic feast on the menu sign outside, which is made to resemble a chalkboard of daily specials. Definitely more Letterhead Fonts but mixed in with others. “Ice Cold” “Apples” and “Bushel” are set in Las Vegas Fabulous from House Industries. It’s one of their more popular scripts, based on the lettering of the original sign for the Flamingo Hotel, and I’ve also used it before in my exhibit design work.
“Mortimer’s” Market is a reference to Walt’s original name for Mickey Mouse, which his wife Lilian reputedly hated and convinced him to change.
He supposedly came up with the better Mickey name on a train. The California Limited advertised on this billboard high above the west side of Buena Vista Street lists Chicago, Kansas City, and Los Angeles as destinations—basically Walt’s birth through adulthood.
The Kingswell Camera Shop is named after Kingswell Avenue, where Walt and Roy Disney opened their first actual office in Silver Lake in 1923. This was the building shared with the Holly Vermont Realty Company.
This is some of the more “obvious” typefaces that Disney has used from Letterhead Fonts. Historical lettering that says “historical” in a very blatant way. It’s not bad design, but I think the designers do better when they make less obvious choices.
The original California Adventure park was filled to the brim with embarrassing puns. And although Disney is known for employing copious wordplay in their designs, thankfully this was all stripped out when the park was overhauled. I could only find one actual pun on Buena Vista Street, and it’s extremely subtle. “Eye Works” refers to Disney Legend Ub Iwerks. Why is this clever? Because it’s a shingle for an optometrist, and Iwerks is most famous for the special optical and photographic effects he innovated in his years with Disney. This might be my favorite detail in the entire land.
Julius Katz & Sons is named for Julius the Cat who appeared in the Alice Comedies of the early 1930s. This makes the character even older than either Mickey Mouse or Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Atwater Ink & Paint is named for Atwater Village in Los Angeles, where animators spent much of their time during the early years of the Disney Studios.
This is some real classy tile work with lovely Arts and Crafts typography. The address is an important one in Disney history; 2719 Buena Vista Street was the location of the Hyperion Avenue studio (1926–1940) for which Buena Vista Street is named.
There are a few other addresses in the 2700 block range which are visible along the storefronts. Sadly this one is set in Copperplate Gothic, though the dimensional metal numerals are quite nice.
The detailing on the Elias & Company building is exquisite. From the glasswork and metal to the engraved lettering, it’s a real treat and awash with period accuracy. This is undeniably a face from Letterhead Fonts. As I’ve said before, the Disney art directors and graphic designers don’t always make ideal choices. Other times they really nail it. Here they’ve picked a typeface that is really from the late 1880s or early 1900s, which is a credible choice for the 1920s.
It’s like seeing a period movie and all the cars are right from that year. Real life isn’t like that, and things that are years or even decades old hang around a lot longer than you’d think. A period film that feels right—and a period film is exactly what a themed space like Buena Vista Street is—is one where there is a mix of “contemporary” for the time and things that are even older.
This lettering, by contrast, actually belongs in the 1930s and 1940s. Pure Deco. Here the Imagineers are providing an era of Los Angeles history (the Golden Age of Hollywood) rather than a specific year. Even if 1923 is referenced specifically time and again as the year that Walt Disney arrived in California.
Here’s a clever bit, and something that I didn’t notice until visiting the newly redesigned California Adventure park for years. Tucked up behind the Deco façade of Elias & Co. is a bit of Gothic Blackletter. “Buena Vista….” something.
If it looks like the masthead of a newspaper, well that’s exactly what it is.
The inaugural issue of The Buena Vista Bugle, Summer 2012. Ⓒ Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The Buena Vista Bugle was an actual newspaper handed out beginning with the park’s reopening. Just like Disneyland had an actual newspaper handed out on Main Street U.S.A. in the early years. The distribution of the paper ended in the fall of 2016, but there’s a website which has archived scans of every issue.
The “Buena Vista” name shows up in other subtle places too. This is the refrigerator from a vendor selling soft drinks on the street. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it kind of graphic. But these subtleties have a gestalt effect in that they multiply and amplify each other to comprise what is essentially worldbuilding in a themed environment.
Although this small neon fin doesn’t scream authentic, I do like the fact that some of the signage could have been installed a bit later, say in the early or mid 1930s. Again, this makes Buena Vista Street feel more like a range in time, rather than a snapshot of 1923 specifically.
The ice cream shop is named after Clarabelle Cow, one of Minnie Mouse's best friends who first appeared in the short Steamboat Willie (1928).
The Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Cafe is interesting, in that at first you might think it has an inconsistent brand. But that’s actually truer to the period, when signs were painted by different people for the same establishment over time and didn’t necessarily match. The concept of “graphic identity” really didn’t exist in the 1920s, especially not for smaller shops.
The cafe is named after the Three Little Pigs from the 1933 Academy Award-winning animated short. Disney’s Silly Symphony cartoon version of the fairytale names them Fifer Pig, Fiddler Pig, and Practical Pig. Both these outdoor handpainted examples are well designed and executed.
The graphic on the doors, however, I find difficult to forgive. It’s clumsy and looks like a modern cut vinyl applied graphic rather than hand painted. It’s too digital and thus too perfect. The “CAFE” lettering looks like any coffee shop along the interstate. The ampersand is squished out of proportion! And even though the script initials resemble a very heavy weight of the Coquette script which I use here at Themerica™, this to my eye is the single ugliest graphic on all of Buena Vista Street.
And wouldn’t you know, there’s my reflection in the window. Nice luck.
And then the Imagineers do something like this. On the same project! For the very same building. The stained glass for the cafe is remarkable. I get that there is some verisimilitude in not having everything be fo the same quality. But if the design of that door sign was a bit more polished, and it was painted and not a vinyl graphic, what a different that would have made. They clearly had the money; they were getting glass cut like this.
Curiously, although the Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Cafe has its own name and identity, inside the location it’s a Starbucks. This was the first joint venture with the two companies inside a theme park, and it required a delicate touch. What’s more contemporary than a Starbucks? So this period lettering outside is quite suitable.
And I thought this was very clever. This is the original logo, which is only in use at the company’s original storefront in Seattle at 1912 Pike Place. Thus it makes the Starbucks on Buena Vista Street “old” (or at least as old as it can be).
The street signage begun at the park’s entrance is complete upon entering Carthay Circle.
This is probably the single best example of classic metal work in the land. It hangs on the information building opposite the Carthay Circle Restaurant.
On that same building, which doubles for the Carthay Circle trolley stop, here’s one last little classic example of Letterhead Fonts. Great choice, and the application feels period not contemporary.
Our tour began with a plaque and ends with one, at the “Storytellers” statue from my last post. Buena Vista Street is a themed environment simply overflowing with elegant design details, and I’m glad I finally had a chance to document much of it after visiting the redesigned park for years. Walt Disney is quoted here as saying “we are just getting started” and for my summer 2021 documentation of the Disneyland Resort, I feel the same way. Lots more to come!