Join me at the Art Deco Festival aboard the HMS Queen Mary. This Saturday August 19 at 11am I will give a 45 minute lecture in the Queen's Ballroom discussing how both futurist designer Norman Bel Geddes and Walt Disney both wanted to build "Worlds of Tomorrow" and how the style was influential in entertainment design. Who inspired who? Come find out, we're showing the Manhattan Airship as well! More here.
Donning his legendary hat of pins, Marty was a fan as well as a leader.
Disney Imagineering President and Disney Legend Marty Sklar passed away recently at 83. He was my boss and we had adjoining offices at Imagineering. Marty was a true survivor, enduring many "adminstrations," each with studio efficiency experts ready to "fix" Imagineering and reorganize the renegade band of disparate talents. Through it all, Marty weathered every storm by explaining to the Studio what we do and we just kept going. I met Marty, not at Disney, but as an 11 year old through his souvenir book describing Disneyland. I must have read it a dozen times as it was the only real inside story of the park, the how and why. Even then he was an inspiration to not just me, but many kids reading it. Having him inscribe the last page at his retirement party meant a lot. Marty's book left this kid sensing the DNA of Walt, it was always about "what is not yet done." Going further.
Marty's inspirational inscription in his book "Disneyland"
Once at Disney Imagineering decades later, Sklar also shepherded many of us designers in our careers, allowing us to experience an "E ticket" thrill ride aboard the "Imagineering Bus", at times in the "front seat" with praise via his legendary "red pen" notes, or the occasional toss "below the wheels" to keep us humble. I especially needed that. Being a rabid UCLA alum, Marty admired Coach Wooden and felt there was no "I" in team, so his mentorship was widespread. He backed ideas you were passionate about without a spreadsheet, like what was to become "Mission:Space" at EPCOT. I laid on my back describing how guests will sense the G Forces of "blast off" and he agreed to fund development! He sensed our passion. His several post-Disney books were also a team effort as he asked many of us to contribute our thoughts. His final work lies unfinished, a design tome called "Mickey's 10 Commandments." He asked me to write something for it a week before he passed, and I was fortunate enough to hear that he wanted to include it. Sadly, that was the last communication we had. Here it is.
"The one thing that Marty’s guidelines have always meant to me is that success is fragile. The business we’re in is one of intangibles and there are balance sheets full of the red ink of those who have tried to merely copy the "Disney formula" and failed. Slavishly encrusting shallow “worlds" with detail and ornament, but lacking soul, clarity, or any understanding of how to connect emotionally with their audience. Building places in spite of their guest's dreams, instead of fulfilling them. There is a reason Disneyland has been called a “labor of love” and it is. The detail is not for art’s sake, it’s for your sake because someone wanted the “escape” to suspend your disbelief. The success of theme parks isn’t in getting people to come, it’s getting people to come back. For decades.
I love sitting on a Main Street bench and watching how the guests react, what works and gets a smile and what doesn’t, but they sense that we were all there. To me, "Mickey’s Ten Commandments" was best summarized by Walt himself in a story Marty likes to tell. Walt once explained that the parks were all about "satisfying people’s needs", and he meant emotional needs. Emotional needs are the reason we get up in the morning, they are our dreams for the future. Choosing the right themes to fulfill a hidden aspiration, playing just the right song, or directing the smell of candy into the street to trigger a memory. How do you do that without “knowing your audience” or "being in their shoes”? They sense the care, love, nostalgia, or childlike innocence of a reassuring experience when we do that job sincerely and earnestly, not because it promotes a movie or toy. No doubt Walt knew better than most what he missed about his own childhood and family, and knew how to build an upbuilding family experience that was a “ton of treat" for us to treasure in our own way."
Marty Sklar meant a great deal to so many people, not just because he worked for Disney, but because he took time to write an encouraging note, listen to your idea, or push you to do your best. I'm not into deification, as if you're looking for faults in Marty or anyone for that matter, you'll find them. Being none of us are perfect, we look for those outstanding qualities and habits worth admiring, celebrate their positive effects, and build on them. Now that's Disney!
One could not have a more encouraging leader and inspiration. This was not rare as many Imagineers held on to Marty's "Red pen" notes and comments.
Thanks Marty!
This article is Sotto's highest read piece currently on Linkedin.
Westfield's New Century City upgrade adds a "home away from home" feel and trendy look.
Southern California's Mall developers (Westfield in particular) are fighting the current "brick and mortar" retail crisis that is shuttering many big box mega stores by "getting personal." Experiential design is finally taking hold for some with swinging benches, lounge chairs, fire pits, fountains and lots of green. All of this "social flypaper" is threaded right through the middle of the many of the same shops we're used to seeing, hoping to prop up the aging mall business model. Sure, there are more wellness and yogurt options to fuel those outdoor back rubs. It seems that weaving retail into "outdoor rooms" as a millennial alternative to your apartment balcony and rusted hibachi may be a novel way to draw crowds. It got me there and it felt great. Internally dubbed "lifestyle" centers, these new offerings did make me wonder how truly "social" these areas are, as we see so many scanning their devices. What next? A coffee? New shoes? A scented candle? Devices are hard to compete with, or maybe those lounging shoppers are conducting a fireside shopping spree on Amazon? The question is, does creating a "village" really result in more sales, or do we have to do more long term than transplant people from their sofa to ours? The conventional wisdom would be that they are more likely to buy something in a retail living room than their own.
Stores have a village strung within them, but are sofas and fire pits enough long term? We wonder too.
As an experiential designer it excites me to see this new direction and feel that it is only the groundwork for the next evolution. Even the appeal of movie theaters as a magnet is in question so it's all an open question. These big boxes that become empty are, of course, terrifying to the mall operators who are used to leasing space versus reinventing their business. We see those boxes as big opportunities to reimagine something exciting. Change is here.
What won't change.
Ironically, Amazon's Jeff Bezos said it best when asked how to cope with continual change. He pointed out that it's best to look at the things that will not change and build on that. In his case, price and speed of delivery. No one wants something more expensive and slow to your door. People will always want to get out of the house at some point, especially as long as there are dysfunctional families. In the case of experiential design, we look to build on creating emotion and really start with that "wow!" and work backwards into how to express it. We look for constants that will bring people out repeatedly. We see sensory design as "systems" and this is important as the mall is holistic experience, something lessors seldom understand as leasing is by necessity a piecemeal negotiation. In time, the identity of that mall experience can be highjacked by the cumulative effect of many disparate lease deals. In fact, the tenant mix to us are like an orchestra, where the symphony takes precedent over the soloists.
"I love your ______"
Are retailers partially to blame? Maybe. As a shopper, at times have you encountered "brick and mortar" retail interactions to be a negative experience compared to online solitude? I've sensed that the staff in too many cases have been cheerily trained to "over serve" you by approaching endlessly till you leave, dispensing hollow compliments, and other annoying practices. Each staffer is oblivious to their teammates so they sequentially approach you with the same canned pitches. Devices may have shifted our social expectations of a good experience to an "on demand" social model, not a "stimulus and response" fake chat. Perhaps we only want interaction when we need it, versus a human pop-up ad? Seems the online world often has more product information and you can browse without interruption. See how conditioned I've become already! So there has to be a bigger and better reason to go than that. Best Buy and others are looking to let you try before you buy. Love that too.
"Merchant-dising."
To that end, it seems "the Village" concept of weaving in social culture as a magnet, strives to rise above the tenants themselves, like "San Francisco" is the destination and Ghirardelli affirms it. Sounds good. In the "lifestyle" center business, there seems to be more "creative risk," as customers are coming for the shared experience of the mall with shopping as a repeatable byproduct. The better stores stoke this by being "merchants", rather than "retailers". "Merchants" continually bring new things that they know will thrill their customers (like Trader Joe's, or Apple used to, ) but "retailers" have no idea why something sells, they just dispassionately offer it. You want to enter a store and feel the fanatical love the staff has for their product, see what's new, perhaps check in with that staffer who is an expert on the product you saw last time. In the old days of buying records it was the "roadie" behind the counter that toured with the bands you love and knew what was about to be released. To me, "authenticity" in retail or the lack of it, is one reason online is winning. As you see, the tenant mix becomes far more curated as you are trying to satisfy or affirm an aspiration in the shopper. It's not just the social spaces, everything matters when you are creating a system of experience.
Variations on a theme.
This kind of "hard fun" is exciting and a really good assignment in the reimagining process of what mall can be. It's creating that feeling of well-being, reassuring us all that our quality of life exists and that we ourselves are relevant within that. Coming from years in theme park design, "lifestyle"malls seem to have become more themed like Disney's Main Street, and to some, Disney's Main Street has become more of a mall. Funny how that "art imitates life imitates art" thing works?
Exciting times. See you at the firepit.
Edward Sotto runs SottoStudios/LA, an experiential design and brand studio in Los Angeles. More articles from Eddie.
Eddie Sotto, Stan Lee, and Rosemarie Piccioni.
Thanks to UCLA Extension's Rosemarie Piccioni I was able to attend an intimate, but highly charged mixer at the Westwood "W" hotel in honor of Spiderman's creator, Stan Lee. The Marvel legend is to receive the first "Icons of LA" award for his cultural contributions and spoke to us about his passion for mutual respect and education. UCLA Extension's Dean Smutz and Lee are committed (as we all are) to reimagining how we learn, and pulling together a diverse group to help make education more experiential. It was a great event to hear Dean Smutz's vision for the future, chime in with some thoughts, and discuss how we can tell better stories and transform them into life lessons. So many great conversations. Thanks to Dean Smutz and Rosemarie for the warm invite. - Eddie Sotto
In support of the team building we are doing with PJS, we are really excited to have entrepreneur and JetLease VP Katy Glynn (AAAE ACE) come aboard as our representative, offering her elite clients the combined resource of our interior design with aviation tech guru Gregg Launer and his benchmark Skytheater product. Imagine the refurb potential! Here are her thoughts on industry trends and why the alliance is such a good idea. READ about it here.
"Excellence is made seamless at PJS. Our clients are rarely conscious of the many details in their journey. We feel that Sotto's cinematic and collaborative design approach with celebrity clients is a natural fit for our own client base. We are excited to offer the opportunity to those to want to articulate their personal brand into a corporate or private solution,”
- Greg Raiff, CEO of Private Jet Services.
“In judging the success of any design endeavor you are only as good as your operator or those executing your design. Great renderings require greater execution and operation for them exceed high client expectation. PJS as a relationship appeals to us in that we are working with a world class organization where failure is really not an option. Our design has to hold up long term, and those who are on the ground with it are the difference in our success in many cases. Congealing our 30 years of high end design work and PJS' deep operational experience presents exponential value to any client,”
- Edward Sotto, Designer, SottoStudios/LA.
We were thrilled to hear from our partner Frank Chavez, at Embraer Executive Jets, that our design collaboration and joint entry, SkyRanch One took the prize for best private jet concept at the ceremony, held at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, Italy. The competition was very stiff with many entries from noteworthy design and well known aviation studios, so to us this award is quite an honor. Thanks to Design VP Jay Beever for his support for our design, his insight and advice, not to mention that big Lineage window! Thanks to everyone at Embraer, let's do it again!
Cocktail reception outside the ballroom at Hotel Cipriani, Venice.
Murano chandeliers set off the rustic venetian brick before the ceremony.
EEJ's Frank Chavez (right) accepts the Award on behalf of SottoStudios and Embraer..
Eddie speaks on experiential design at both Applied Invention and WET Design this week. From time to time, Eddie can be engaged as a guest speaker on the topic of experiential design. He has spoken on design at in the invitation of Procter and Gamble, Art Center of Pasadena, Nokia, Disney, Herman Miller, Pixar, Warner Bros, and others. Contact us at info@sottostudios.com
