Disney+’s The Imagineering Story: Mixdesign’s Top Takeaways

The Imagineering Story, a six-part documentary series on Disney+, goes behind the scenes in one of the most creative divisions of the Walt Disney Company. It gives an inside look at just how Imagineers create some of the most beloved experiences around the world. 

As a team of creative storytellers and experience designers, Mixdesign is always finding areas to learn and grow from our industry peers. We challenged each member of our team to watch The Imagineering Story not only to affirm our own creativity and processes, but to spark our minds in new ways to better our own clients and company and team growth.

Here are the top takeaways mixdesign learned from The Imagineering Story: 

“Plus” It Up 

In the series, Imagineering art director Kim Irvine says, “Guests want everything to stay the same, just as they remember the first time they ever came. But that’s really not a good idea because things become stale. Walt [Disney] wanted all of these attractions to be updated. He kept saying you’ve got to keep this thing alive, fresh and new.” Imagineering follows a simple rule when making changes to Disneyland: Any update needs to improve the classic attraction.  

As with many of our projects, mixdesign always looks for ways to keep the initial experience moving forward. That may mean updating part of the experience, or expanding to include a new feature such as a tactile push button experience or a touch screen game. Updating attractions and experiences in this way only allows it to be elevated further for guests, inspiring them to keep returning for more. 

Creative Collaboration and Trusting the Process

Mixdesign’s five step process [that would link to the process page on the website] allows us to fully discover and dot-connect all the ways we can bring a client’s story to life. This process allows our team to constantly collaborate and “yes, and...” ideas and concepts to ensure we’re giving our clients the best possible experiences.

But, we also take pride in collaborating with our clients. Much like the Imgaineers worked closely with teams from Pixar, and sought to include world culture in the Asian and European parks, collaborating with clients is key.  At mixdesign, this part of the collaborative process includes site visits with the client and trips to various family and large farms. By guiding clients through our creative process with us on site and in meetings, we’re able to find all the ways we can add sprinkles that elevate the experience.

Strive for the Human Connection

One of the main goals when designing experiences is how are the guests going to feel at the end? What are they going to get out of this experience? 

As we work to bring a story to life, we take care in every aspect because we know that delight is in the detail. That detail helps the mix team to create something that guests can connect with on some level elevates their experience on a human level. It gives them a space to recall memories and spark imagination.