Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Fixing Future World: The Little Things


There are many critical voices that say Future World is broken and needs fixing. They offer thoughtful, well-written opinions on why it was a mistake to close Horizons, how Finding Nemo has nothing to do with the theme of Future World, or how Future World doesn't really have a theme anymore.

In a perfect world, Disney would realize their mistake and spare no expense to undo all the damage that's been done since 1994 when EPCOT Center first became simply "Epcot". Even if the economy wasn't circling the drain, though, it's just not realistic to expect the pointy-haired MBAs who run the company to suddenly "get it" and do something so drastic.

So, as a low-cost alternative, how about this? Instead of each attraction having its own distinctive signage, how about bringing back the unique circular logos for each pavilion, and rendering all the signage in the classic "EPCOT" font (which looks like something in the Handel Gothic family, if you ask me). Future World may no longer have thematic unity, but at least there can be visual unity, some sense that all these attractions are part of the same "land". I'm not sure what the cost of this would be, but I imagine it'd be well under a million dollars. To a company that rakes in money the way a fishing trawler vacuums up fish, that's chump change.

Don't get me wrong; I want Horizons back, and I want Dreamfinder back in an Imagination pavilion with an enjoyable ride that takes up the whole first floor, with the second floor devoted to an updated and revitalized ImageWorks. I want a Seas pavilion that meaningfully addresses the damage that humans are doing to the marine environment. I want a Life and Health pavilion, too. But since we're never going to get any of that stuff, how about just the cool circular logos and everything in the same font? Is that too much to ask?

1 comment:

  1. http://www.dafont.com/prototype.font?nb_ppp=50

    ^Font from all the old signage.

    ReplyDelete

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