Big Day

My friends’ boy, Daikichi, has been wanting to go with me to Disneyland for what seems like years now. To be clear, we go once or twice a year with the whole family, but he wants to go with just me, which is very sweet. But Daikichi has been so busy, studying for his upcoming entrance exam for junior high. Evenings and weekends are jam-packed with cram school. The only days he’s free are public holidays, which are among the busiest at Disneyland. I schemed with his parents, and we decided for Christmas, I could pull him out of school any day after his exam, and we could go to Disneyland that day. I thought that was a really cute idea, but it’s an intangible gift. Compared to the big LEGO set I got for his sister Nikki, just saying that we can go to Disneyland would not be enough. So I set out to make him a ticket book. Besides Disneyland in California and Magic Kingdom in Florida, Tokyo Disneyland also had ticket books! Some of them were marketed as “Big Ten” with standard ABCDE-tickets inside, with a promo ticket for a new attraction like Meet the World . The goal here was not to make a replica of any real ticket book, but rather make something reminiscent of a real one, something he never got to experience. Honestly, I never did either. To me, it was important to recreate not individual elements, but the vibe of having a ticket book. To that end, I started by measuring out ticket sizes and making a pattern. I took every opportunity to make fun details. Apart from the design, I also needed to determine what the tickets were good for, in a ranked value like the originals. Since nowadays park admission includes all attractions, the modern equivalent to an E-ticket is not really admission to an E-ticket attraction, but maybe the paid Fastpass option, Disney Premier Access. The D-ticket could be a normal free Fastpass, Priority Pass. Other things we’d purchase like dinner, lunch, and a snack could be C, B, and A tickets. I used Hoefler’s Tungsten for the big ticket letter and HEX Franklin for most body copy. I got to use Mark Simonson’s incredible Bookmania for the slightly frilly “Big Day” and “Main Entrance Admission” titles. Hoefler’s Claimcheck Numbers for the date, and my own Urayasu font (unreleased 2.0) for the Tokyo Disneyland logo. I drew everything else I needed. Meet the World is long gone, so I needed a different promo ticket. And then it hit me. The Disney Resort Line (monorail) has these really cute souvenir day passes. So Daikichi can exchange one of my tickets for one of those tickets. To fill up the space, I drew the iconic hand straps hanging on the headline rule. Yes, this is all fine and great, but to make this into a reality, I didn’t just have to print them. I needed to cut them to size so...

Preview: ~500 words