DISNEY IN POSTERLAND

My first indelible memory of visiting Disneyland in Anaheim, California (as a thirty-one year old child!) is of standing in front of the entrance facade and gazing at the floral-logo of Mickey Mouse as, above me, a period railroad locomotive steamed to a halt with the clang of a bell and the wail of a whistle...

And that memory is followed by the array of posters that flanked my path through the passageway under the railroad track, each promoting the wild, weird and wonderful attractions that awaiting me in Disney's Magic Kingdom. Why, I even carried a print of one of them back with me as a souvenir...

From the park's opening day in 1955, posters have been a way of informing – exciting – visitors about the fun and thrills to be enjoyed in 'the happiest place on earth'. Several hundred of these posters from Disneyland (and its sister parks in Florida, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong) have been gathered together in a superbly designed book from Disney Editions, Poster Art of the Disney Parks by Daniel Hadke and Vanessa Hunt...

The book is introduced by Tony Baxter, Senior Vice President, Creative Development at Walt Disney Imagineering – the company that combines imagination and engineering to design and build the Disney parks, their architecture and entertainments. 

Baxter writes: 'A great poster sells its story from a distance and needs to be glimpsed just briefly to work its magic.' And that is especially true of the earliest, screen-printed posters reflecting the graphic style of the '50s: works with bold designs and vivid colours that dramatically convey their message with eye-arresting immediacy...

 

So closely did Disneyland become associated with this graphic style, that it was routinely adapted for  later attractions in subsequent decades...

More recently, Disney's designers have favoured more elaborate, illustrative style, less instantaneous in their impact, perhaps, but filled with a visual richness that causes the viewer to linger longer in order to absorb the meticulous detailing. As Tony Baxter puts it: 'Great illustrations ... can accommodate much more detail and often tell complex stories within the imagery.'

Not every poster that has been bill-stickered in the Disney Parks is here, but Handke and Hunt's large-format book certainly contains the best-of-the-best, spanning fifty-seven years – many as striking full page images – along with preparatory art and numerous examples of designs that never reached the bill-boards.

The book also highlights the differences in the way the various park attractions have been depicted around the Disney globe. Here, for example, is the Disneyland, California, poster for 'Snow White's Scary Adventures'...

...and its counterpart in Disneyland Paris...

If you were looking for a late Christmas present for a Disney theme park aficionado, I can think of no better book than this to evoke fond memories of past visits and whet the appetite for future ones.

For anyone in the rest of humanity who has an interest in poster art, this is a unique record of over half-a-century of stylish product promotion and evocative and engaging commercial art.