I had literally just finished my ‘Mallrats’ cards (which you can read about here), when I had to start my next project for a show (Quest for Fun), based on the ‘National Lampoon’sVacation’ franchise.
The show was to debut at Gallery 1988 in a few weeks, so I needed to start working ASAP.
Much like the ‘Mallrats’ exhibition, I wanted my contribution to be once again, functional.
I had decided, early on, that I was going to do some kind of souvenir item from one of the films.
Each installment in the franchise revolves the Griswold’s, as they navigate many new, and sometimes foreign, experiences during their travels.
The films primarily star both Chevy Chase (Clark Griswold), and Beverly D’Angelo (Ellen Griswold), as the head of the beloved family, with cameo’s from other familiar faces.
I had a hard time settling on a film to base my piece on, as my favorite exploits take place during ‘European Vacation’, the second film in the franchise.
Since my time was limited, I decided the most logical approach was to design a souvenir from the fictitious theme park of ‘Walley World’ in the first film.
Originally, I planned to do a keychain of some kind, which evolved into a bottle opener, then a felt pennant, and finally a souvenir mug.
The deciding factor for me however, was the production time.
I could design something simple relatively quickly, but I had no control over how long it was going to take for a distributor to manufacture my product in the time remaining.
If time was not an issue, I probably would have picked the pennant, unless I could’ve come up with a concept for the bottle opener I preferred.
Since I had experience with designing mug wraps (here and here), I had a reliable, and consistent manufacturer for the mugs, so I knew what to expect.
Now usually when I do these types of designs, I like to try and linearly capture the subject, story, etc., in a way that is faithful to the original content.
Initially, I was going to illustrate the family’s travels from their home in Chicago, as they traipse through rural America in the early 1980’s, on their way to the fabled amusement park in California.
I began sketching out my idea, and gathering resource materials, when I realized that this particular approach was not ‘right’, for what I wanted to convey.
I should mention here, that as a native of Southern California, and child of the 80’s, I had some personal experience to drawn upon.
This led me to recall a design from my youth on the confectionary bags from ‘Disneyland’, which contained small vignettes of attractions, and utilized a limited color scheme.
It was exactly what I needed as a reference, if I could find it.
I then scoured the internet looking for authentic images from theme parks and their merchandise, during the year in which the film takes place (1983).
I eventually found the original inspirational image, but in my search results, I resulted in procuring an even better example from Disney’s ‘Magic Kingdom’ in Florida during the same era.
I considered that, since the film takes place during the very early 1980’s, a conservative color scheme was more appropriate (as it was also closer to the late 1970’s), and I wanted to avoid the bright, obnoxious pastels, which afflict most designs from the decade.
Once I settled on my swatches (which were selected from the pantones provided), I needed to move onto building the imagery that would appear on the mug itself.
In order to capture ‘Walley World’ as faithfully as possible from the film, I had to once again gather resource material.
It took quite some time to find some of the images, primarily because in the film, many of them are part of a matte painting dropped over an actual existing theme park façade, in Southern California.
In the movie, the theme park set is actually none other than ‘Six Flags Magic Mountain’, in Valencia, California.
Many of the rides on display either do not exist at the actual park, have been removed, or redesigned.
I had to dig through archives on many sites dedicated to amusement park history, and ride catalogs.
The four armed bucket ride in particular was a nightmare to find reference for, and you’d think after how long it took to find it, I’d remember what it was called.
Many of the images I found were either pixelated, making the details too small to make out.
I also had to cross reference the ‘fictitious’ images with that of the actual rides the family interacts with in the film.
Once I finally gathered all my resource material, I laid out the images according to how they appear in the film in an attempt to faithfully capture the park as the family approaches the front gates.
Utilizing my inspirational image from above I ultimately ended up making some design decisions to direct the flow of my work.
I immediately started on designing the images, working primarily in Adobe Illustrator, a very different approach than I would normally take for a project like this.
Luckily, I managed to quickly finish the designs, and spent the remaining time editing the size, and placement in until I had something that resonated with me.
I then worked on a title treatment for the mug, which I designed around the motif of a moose head, inspired by the character of ‘Walley Moose’, who’s theme park the family was attending.
I then had to hand-build the font in the logo, in order to mimic its likeness from the film.
The final touch came, when I set about adding the tree line in the background as a transitioning element throughout the design.
After a few more adjustments, I managed to create a design that had an appropriately ‘whimsical’ feel to it.
As stated previously, this project was completed entirely in Adobe Illustrator, with the exception of the tree line done in Procreate, and editing in Photoshop.
The show originally ran at Gallery 1988 from October 16th – October 31st, and the 15 ounce mugs (sold out) along with the rest of the shows collaborative pieces, are all featured on the gallery’s website.
You can also find me on various social media platforms below doing a multitude of other artistic things that include hand lettering, and the occasional sculpting/crafting
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IG: stiles1978
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Twitter: paragonofpuns
Pinterest: Stiles of Art
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