Daniel Handke

A beautiful coffee-table book featuring lots of amazing artwork from the Disney parks that should be in the library of any Disney theme park fan.

This book compiles hundreds of attraction posters from the Walt Disney Imagineering archives, and presents them in a gorgeous large-size format. Aside from being great pieces of art on their own (which they are), attraction posters also serve a couple of other roles in the Disney parks.

The posters in this book are great examples of the Imagineering practice of simplifying complex subjects so that they can be "read" quickly by Guests (what I call "Read-ability"). This is the same technique employed in many Disney attractions where the Guests have only a few moments to "read" a scene and understand the scene's part in the overall story of the attraction. Examples of this technique are common in the classic Disney dark rides, including Pirates of the Caribbean (my favorite example being the jail scene, where the pirates try to get the key to their cell from a nearby dog) and Haunted Mansion.

Guests typically glance at attraction posters quickly as they move through the parks, often not paying them all that much attention. The magic of these posters is that they communicate the essence of their subjects quickly and effectively, so that Guests can understand what awaits them if they choose to experience the attractions elsewhere in the park.

Attraction posters also serve as a form of "weenie" (the term Walt Disney used to describe something that says to people 'come this way'), enticing Guests to check out the various attractions throughout the parks.

As a fan and student of Imagineering, reading this book helped me appreciate how the Imagineers use these posters to lead and guide their audience into and through the Disney parks.

As you might guess from this review, I strongly recommend this book to any Disney park fan, as well as to graphic designers and illustrators.… (more)

This isn't a book to read, but one to savor nonetheless. Full of beautiful posters from Disney parks around the world, it's a book I love to open to a random page and display on a book holder. No matter where you open to, there will be a beautiful poster to see.

I especially love the side-by-side comparison of posters for the same ride in different parks and languages. You almost never get to see concept sketches for professional work, so it is a rare treat in this book.

Whether you're a fan of Disney, art, posters, or all of the above, you will love to flip through this book and marvel at the work and design from the most magical company on Earth. You'll keep coming back again and again, kind of like how It's a Small World keeps playing again and again in your head when you look at the posters.… (more)