What is TED?

Thematic Environmental Design

What Is Thematic Environmental Design? |What Is Show Writing? | About My Degree

It's not about saving trees. It's not about global warming. It is about the spaces we live, work, learn, eat, shop, and play in. You can make it about ecology if you want to.

Design, of course, refers to making order out of chaos, or taking an empty space (blank page) and creating a sensible plan. Good design serves a purpose, is logical, and uses artistic devices to evoke the intended response, and does all of this in the most efficient way possible. Environmental refers to our surroundings - structures and landscapes. So, Environmental Design refers to using such disciplines as architectural, scene, interior, and landscape design to create a sense of place out of a certain space (whether a single room, a backyard, a building, or a city). Thematic refers to a common setting and message, such as "gloomy dungeon" or "fantasy castle".

So, Thematic Environmental Design refers to the kind of the design that is used in designing theme parks, themed retail and dining experiences, etc. It involves creating a setting and telling a story.

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What Is Show Writing? |What Is Thematic Environmental Design? | About My Degree

Show writing involves anything with words, from scripts and spiels to title signs, that contributes to creating an entertainment experience. Every show in a theme park, from live performances to video and film presentations, from the words of animatronics in a ride-through, to narration, needs to be written. In addition, backstories are often written to aid design, even if the audience never will read or hear the actual backstory. Finally, signs and other text that the audience will see must be written in accordance with the theme and story.

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About My Degree | What Is Thematic Environmental Design? | What Is Show Writing?

Why a Degree in TED? | What My Studies Entailed

When I was choosing where to go to college and what to study, there was no book called Walt Disney Imagineering. There was no Themed Entertainment Association. Learning about how theme parks were designed came about from visiting them, reading the occasional book on people like Walt Disney, the few fanzines, scarce articles, and by talking with the individuals in the emerging industry or attending their lectures. By looking really hard, you may have actually been able to find a class on "theme park design." But there was really no program around for learning how to do theme park design, or "imagineering", if you will.

There were good and bad reasons for that. Bad: theme park design was largely looked down on by the elite of architecture and of theatre, and theme parks were considered the "bastard child", if you will, of entertainment industry. Good: the "big" firms like Walt Disney Imagineering aren't comprised of hundreds of people with the title of "theme park designer". That would be like having a movie studio crammed full of people with the title of "filmmaker". No, theme park design takes a host of disciplines working together to produce a finished product, or at least a product that is worthy of presenting the public.

Just as you need various people to make a movie (producers, directors, writers, actors, lighting technicians, sound technicians, etc.), various people are needed to make a good themed entertainment experience. Producers, art directors, writers, storyboard artists, illustrators, sculptors, model makers, architects, lighting designers, sound designers, musicians, and many other people (including all sorts of engineers, technicians, lawyers, and financial wizards) get together to come up with a concept for an attraction, design it, and build it. You need even more people to put several attractions together to actually form a theme park.

Also, theme park design is an ever-changing industry, as technology progresses, and as the boundaries between different forms of entertainment become blurred and the influence spreads beyond traditional theme parks.

I needed some skills that I could use even if no more theme parks or attractions would be built. I also needed enough variety and general education so that I could be more effective at targeting my primary skills, and to develop my secondary skills.

Alas, inspired by Adam Bezark, I discovered that California State University at Fullerton allowed people to go through a grueling process to create their own major. And so I did.

What My Studies Entailed

Taking classes from the School of Art (art department, theater department), the School of Communications (communications department) and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (English department), with particular attention to creative writing, I crafted a course load for a BA in Thematic Environmental Design that fit the university guidelines. The course load was reviewed by industry professionals and several layers of administration at the university before being approved.

My major's course load included classes in creative writing, environmental design, scene design, architectural history, visual communication, screenwriting, film directing, etc. to augment my general education and the courses I had already taken in illustration and composition. I interned at Landmark Entertainment Group, wrote a thesis paper, and designed an attraction as a thesis project to complete my official studies.

It was a difficult, but enjoyable and rewarding experience that was enhanced by working "in the trenches" as a Disneyland Park cast member.

Through this training and education, I became familiar with the principles of writing, cross promotion & synergy, networking, 2-D & 3-D composition, and spatial relationships to enhance crowd flow, mood, and communication in both linear and nonlinear constructs, whether live or recorded, passive or interactive.

Many of the same principles used in designing location-based entertainment can also be applied to media communications. The idea is to make your information, whether business directives or creative stories, flow the way you want it to so it will be easily apprehended, understood, and retained by your audience. It is all about organization and presentation.

While writing is my main vehicle for creation, scale models assist me in my design process, as does drafting and sketching.

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