Decorating Lessons From Amusement Park Pros
There’s a lot to learn about fun design from a carnival fun-house maker and a designer of Disneyland’s new Pixar Pier
Photo from Disney
Tell a story with your space. With a company archive of movies and characters to mine for inspiration and specific stories they’re tasked with telling, Disney park designers, fittingly known as Imagineers, approach projects with a built-in sense of focus that the average homeowner might lack. Mosher headed up interior design on Pixar Pier’s Lamplight Lounge gastropub, a restaurant filled with nods to Pixar’s animators and their artistic process.
Among the clever themed details in the space is the chandelier of sketches seen here. “It looks like kind of a tornado of paper that has flown up into the air, and there are all kinds of different concept sketches on it,” Mosher says. “There’s even a blank page on there that represents the famous quote from Marty Sklar, who’s one of our famous Imagineers, that the scariest thing in the world is a blank sheet of paper.”
Tell a story with your space. With a company archive of movies and characters to mine for inspiration and specific stories they’re tasked with telling, Disney park designers, fittingly known as Imagineers, approach projects with a built-in sense of focus that the average homeowner might lack. Mosher headed up interior design on Pixar Pier’s Lamplight Lounge gastropub, a restaurant filled with nods to Pixar’s animators and their artistic process.
Among the clever themed details in the space is the chandelier of sketches seen here. “It looks like kind of a tornado of paper that has flown up into the air, and there are all kinds of different concept sketches on it,” Mosher says. “There’s even a blank page on there that represents the famous quote from Marty Sklar, who’s one of our famous Imagineers, that the scariest thing in the world is a blank sheet of paper.”
Photo from Disney
Additional mementos decorate walls, shelves and other surfaces. Framed T-shirts, shown here, highlight Pixar employees’ tradition of designing department-specific team shirts for each movie the studio makes.
Just across the pier, the Incredicoaster, inspired by Pixar’s The Incredibles and the just-released Incredibles 2, has its own narrative, steeped in the midcentury aesthetic of the two movies. “That’s something that stands out because you’re telling the story at 55 miles an hour,” Mosher says.
Additional mementos decorate walls, shelves and other surfaces. Framed T-shirts, shown here, highlight Pixar employees’ tradition of designing department-specific team shirts for each movie the studio makes.
Just across the pier, the Incredicoaster, inspired by Pixar’s The Incredibles and the just-released Incredibles 2, has its own narrative, steeped in the midcentury aesthetic of the two movies. “That’s something that stands out because you’re telling the story at 55 miles an hour,” Mosher says.
Photo from Owen Trailers
In fun-house design, a similarly concentrated driving force guides Owen and the artistic team he works with at Duncan Design as they dream up and plan out themed rides such as the German beer garden-influenced Cuckoo Haus or the wizard-centric Magic Maze, both seen sketched here.
“What we’re really looking for is an experience for a few hours, maybe less, that is a form of escapism that really kind of pulls you into a different world,” Mosher says.
At home, where you’ll be looking at your design daily, the escapist element may not factor in, but your choices can still be just as expressive.
“In your house, you don’t really have to stick to one story line,” Mosher says. “You’re really trying to showcase your personality.”
In fun-house design, a similarly concentrated driving force guides Owen and the artistic team he works with at Duncan Design as they dream up and plan out themed rides such as the German beer garden-influenced Cuckoo Haus or the wizard-centric Magic Maze, both seen sketched here.
“What we’re really looking for is an experience for a few hours, maybe less, that is a form of escapism that really kind of pulls you into a different world,” Mosher says.
At home, where you’ll be looking at your design daily, the escapist element may not factor in, but your choices can still be just as expressive.
“In your house, you don’t really have to stick to one story line,” Mosher says. “You’re really trying to showcase your personality.”
Photo from Owen Trailers
Make it fun for everyone. Teetering through a spinning fun-house barrel isn’t the only thing that requires balance. Unlike speeding coasters or whirling carnival rides, fun houses, like the one seen here, aim to appeal to a spectrum of visitors, Owen says, from young children to hard-to-impress teens to parents and grandparents. “You have to do this weird game of not making it too challenging but making it fun enough,” he says.
The same balanced outlook comes in handy when designing a fun but functional gathering space at home. How Grandma will use or appreciate a room may be just as important to consider as how you or your little ones will.
Make it fun for everyone. Teetering through a spinning fun-house barrel isn’t the only thing that requires balance. Unlike speeding coasters or whirling carnival rides, fun houses, like the one seen here, aim to appeal to a spectrum of visitors, Owen says, from young children to hard-to-impress teens to parents and grandparents. “You have to do this weird game of not making it too challenging but making it fun enough,” he says.
The same balanced outlook comes in handy when designing a fun but functional gathering space at home. How Grandma will use or appreciate a room may be just as important to consider as how you or your little ones will.
Modern lines and an elegant lighting fixture, for example, can make playful details that a kid might love — such as the hanging chair and Ferris Wheel-like bookshelf in this contemporary Brazilian space — feel more sophisticated and grown-up-friendly.
Taking a cue from theme park and movie theater snack bars, this concession nook and bar in Houston is an elevated take on a popcorn and candy station that works for adults and kids alike.
How to Have a Little More Fun With Your Decor
How to Have a Little More Fun With Your Decor
Restraint and balance have their place, but if you’re looking to have more fun with your home decor, Mosher suggests following in theme park designers’ coaster tracks and using colorful paints, a mix of patterns and pieces packed with character. This coaster-inspired teen’s bedroom in Orlando, Florida, for example, is unapologetically bright and cheery.
Photo from Owen Trailers
If it works, build on it. Owen’s family has been in the carnival trailer business since the 1940s. The company’s exterior fronts, like the Surf Shack seen here, and interior configurations have evolved over the years, he says, but many modern features of their rides (details Owen refers to as “tricks") are new interpretations of traditional fun-house effects.
“The way we move it and the way we mechanically make it work is ours,” he says. “But the actual concept of it is something that’s just been around forever.”
If it works, build on it. Owen’s family has been in the carnival trailer business since the 1940s. The company’s exterior fronts, like the Surf Shack seen here, and interior configurations have evolved over the years, he says, but many modern features of their rides (details Owen refers to as “tricks") are new interpretations of traditional fun-house effects.
“The way we move it and the way we mechanically make it work is ours,” he says. “But the actual concept of it is something that’s just been around forever.”
Photo from Owen Trailers
Tricks like a pathway made of conveyer rollers and spinning disks, as seen here, can be reordered, repurposed and repainted in other fun-house versions.
Similarly, if you have something at home that still works for you but you want to up its fun factor — or it no longer fits with other pieces — try looking at it another way. Reimagining a comfy couch in a different part of the house or with fresh upholstery or throw pillows could be a resourceful solution.
Tricks like a pathway made of conveyer rollers and spinning disks, as seen here, can be reordered, repurposed and repainted in other fun-house versions.
Similarly, if you have something at home that still works for you but you want to up its fun factor — or it no longer fits with other pieces — try looking at it another way. Reimagining a comfy couch in a different part of the house or with fresh upholstery or throw pillows could be a resourceful solution.
Photo from Disney
Embrace unexpected inspiration. “You find inspiration in weird places,” Owen says. Fun-house designs have been born out of everything from industrial machinery to brainstorming sessions jotted on cocktail napkins.
Since inspiration is one of the central themes of Mosher’s Lamplight Lounge, the place is packed with examples of it. This glass-top table, for instance, is filled with die-cast toy versions of different characters in the Cars movies. A similar table sits in a conference room at Pixar’s animation studios campus.
Embrace unexpected inspiration. “You find inspiration in weird places,” Owen says. Fun-house designs have been born out of everything from industrial machinery to brainstorming sessions jotted on cocktail napkins.
Since inspiration is one of the central themes of Mosher’s Lamplight Lounge, the place is packed with examples of it. This glass-top table, for instance, is filled with die-cast toy versions of different characters in the Cars movies. A similar table sits in a conference room at Pixar’s animation studios campus.
Photo from Disney
Throughout the restaurant, Mosher and her team strove to re-create the studios’ imagination-filled vibe. On inspiration-seeking visits to the studios, she noted that animators had kept everything from tropical landscape photos taken on research trips for the movie Up to Route 66 soil samples studied for work on Cars. In the restaurant, surfaces are crowded with a comparable mix of items.
Throughout the restaurant, Mosher and her team strove to re-create the studios’ imagination-filled vibe. On inspiration-seeking visits to the studios, she noted that animators had kept everything from tropical landscape photos taken on research trips for the movie Up to Route 66 soil samples studied for work on Cars. In the restaurant, surfaces are crowded with a comparable mix of items.
Photo from Disney
You may not want to deck out your house in cartoon imagery and props, but Mosher says the principles of themed design can still be applied at home when it comes to capturing a particular essence and energy.
“There is a way to do it where it’s not blatantly character-driven, but rather inspired by,” she says. For example, if someone was using as inspiration the character Joy — happiness personified in the movie Inside Out and seen here in the “Vice Versa” poster — they might reference her through a color palette of blues and yellows, fuzzy textures and glowing lighting.
It’s about “trying to find furnishings and things that were soft, maybe trying to take some of the elements that she is made up of rather than her image directly,” Mosher says.
You may not want to deck out your house in cartoon imagery and props, but Mosher says the principles of themed design can still be applied at home when it comes to capturing a particular essence and energy.
“There is a way to do it where it’s not blatantly character-driven, but rather inspired by,” she says. For example, if someone was using as inspiration the character Joy — happiness personified in the movie Inside Out and seen here in the “Vice Versa” poster — they might reference her through a color palette of blues and yellows, fuzzy textures and glowing lighting.
It’s about “trying to find furnishings and things that were soft, maybe trying to take some of the elements that she is made up of rather than her image directly,” Mosher says.
Tell us: How do you keep your home feeling fun and creatively inspired? Share your stories in the Comments.
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A mouse-eared cap or a hard-won giant stuffed bear is a respectable keepsake to bring home from the amusement park, but design inspiration may be just as exciting a souvenir.
As families and thrill-seekers flock to carnivals and theme parks and Disneyland celebrates the grand opening of its computer animation-focused Pixar Pier this summer, we turned to the brains behind the attractions for insight into amusement park design and how its tenets can kindle more playful decor at home.
Here are a few lessons we learned from Walt Disney Imagineering art director Katrina Mosher and fun-house maker Jeff Owen of Southern California’s Owen Trailers. We didn’t even have to topple a milk-jug pyramid to get them.