How I Make My Posts: The Design Process

Last year I wrote a post about the technology process of how I make my posts, specifically the park maps.

I had said then that the eventual plan was to do a part 2 to go over the design aspect of the maps. And now so many months and many projects later, I have gotten back to that post.

This is going to be a bit different than the last one though just because of how technology is precise but design is subjective. I can't say that there is a right way to do any of this. And it even feels a little weird for me to say that I have any kind of authority to talk about how to design as someone without real training and doing this just for fun. But I'll try to share some ideas.

So what I am going to do is just describe what I do and what I think about with my maps, not the end all guide to how to design a theme park. If you want to know that, start turning to many many books on the subject and all the real experts. The following steps and tips are just some of the things I have picked up from both my architecture school training, all the books on the subject, and things I have just figured out as I went along.

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To walk through this, I'm using the last post, the Hollywood Studios Plan, as the main example, so it helps if you've already looked at that and are familiar with what I tried to do.

First step for this plan and for all the expansion plans for existing parks is to identify the areas for potential expansion or replacement. Anything that I think might be worth improving or changing. I need to get an idea of what I have to work with before really starting. Here's an image of when I diagrammed that out for Hollywood Studios. Obviously a lot of space to work with in this case, but in others I get as specific as individual attractions that I think could go.

Diagram of potential expansion area

Once I see the potential space, I start to put a plan together for what lands or big moves I want to make. This doesn't happen for all parks but most have included at least one new land or big addition.

In the case of this park, I knew I was going for the obvious Marvel, Pixar, and Animation trio to be my big additions, so this was not that difficult compared to other parks. Along with this step of figuring out the lands, I also try to figure out the idea of the park, the concept that I am aiming for. Knowing my goals early helps the decision process for what big moves to make. In the case for this park, the idea was obvious, but for a park like EPCOT for instance, this was a crucial step. I needed to make the decision about the tone and style at the start before getting detailed.

Then in cases where I am adding new lands, I start to rough in where the new lands will go. This step requires me to try a bunch of different options, but because I am just doing quick studies, it does not take much time. Things to consider include how the lands will work with existing attractions, how much space I anticipate needing for the land, the flow between lands, and the goals I have for the park. It doesn't have to be binding, I changed the diagram below a little after getting started, but the general guiding idea still worked.

Rough layout of how the lands could fit together

Important in this step is to consider the traffic flow through the park and the general form of the pathways. Here is where I start to figure out if I can work in a hub and spoke plan or a loop or something else. This shows how I was seeing the loop plan that this park developed. Well, loop with some offshoots to the right.

Diagram of main pathway

The next really big step is to start to work out the attractions list. This takes some time and is basically always a different process for each park. Sometimes I am trying to pick out attraction concepts to replace a specific attraction, sometimes I am picking out attractions to develop a whole land from scratch, and often it is both. This step really happens at the same time as the last, laying out the lands, as I think about the amount of space each land should need.

I try to work out a full list of all the attractions I want to add, both by theme and ride system, to start. The types of ride systems is something I really focus on, trying to bring balance of types of rides to the park. I like each park to have some big E ticket rides, some coasters, some classic dark rides, some flatrides, and some unique elements. I really try to make sure I don't end up with a park of 80% dark rides. Some times I will actually make a list of the types of rides I want to add before even thinking about the themes or characters. In the case of this park, I made a list of ride systems and a list of themes and then worked through many options of bringing the lists together until I was happy with the direction I was going. I used this same process with EPCOT, where I was adding many attractions. I may revisit the land layouts once this list is together to make sure it all looks like it will work.

At this point I have the ideas for the lands and the attractions and I have not started drawing anything yet. Its all in lists and diagrams.

Once I am settled on the plan, I start the drawing file for the new park plan. First step is to delete everything that I plan to demolish and start to look at what I have to work with. I also start copying in attractions from other parks that are either clones or similar to what I am adding. These are to help judge the amount of space needed early on. You can see here that I copied in Pirates, Forbidden Journey, Haunted Mansion, Pooh, and some flatrides. That's a pretty good group to show different attraction scales. Large boat ride, big E Ticket, moderate size dark ride, small dark ride, spinner. I can get a lot of reference from a group like that.

Park in early progress

I now start to really get into laying out the lands. This begins really with a lot of placeholder boxes and text to start to shape the space. I want to see how the elements of the land will relate to each other and the existing park before really putting anything permanent. For this park, the shot below shows that early step for the Marvel land. Bonus, you can see when I was exploring including a giant helicarrier in the land. This is like how I blocked out the lands of the park to start, now I block out each individual land, getting more focused each step.

Diagramming out a land

One thing I will frequently do that I didn't do on this park is actually do some diagrammatic drawing on a blank site plan. These examples were done with a digital tablet. I usually do this when I am starting completely fresh with a park or a land. Without context to start to work from, like existing buildings and attractions, I have a lot more options of how the land develops. So it helps to really quickly sketch through a lot of plans to explore relationships, sightlines, scales. Here are two examples, from Beastly Kingdom and the park I did for WDWmagic forum last year. It's messy sketching, but helps me think through issues before I make them permanent.

Beastly Kingdom diagram sketch

WDWMagic forum park diagram sketch

Once I am happy with a layout, I start to draw the buildings and roads and other elements. Still starting rough and boxy, but that is all I need to explore the way the land could develop. At this point, the process is just refinement and adding detail. I don't work straight through from diagram to finished product at once. Its really rounds of detail as I get more comfortable with what I have. And I may get to the point that I decide to start over with a land once I discover something in how I am drawing it.

Eventually, I am happy with the layout and the buildings and add final details. Rooflines, planted areas, trees, other kinds of landscape features. That really helps sell it as an aerial, not a diagram. Then I reach the finished product.

Land in progress of refinement

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As I design and refine, there a many things I consider, but here are a couple of the most important.


Sightlines are incredibly important, both in making sure that you see what you should and that you don't see what you shouldn't. The main use that I consider is how sightlines can draw guests towards an element and how sightlines can create a sequence of movement. I have talked about both of these ideas in the past in short essays on this blog, found here. There are three ideas I focus on with this.

First, a big goal is to create a sequence of interesting landmarks or elements that guests want to walk towards and explore. And then once they get to that element, there is another element that keeps you moving deeper and deeper into the park.

With sightlines, I also want to make sure that attraction entrances and major elements are placed so that they are the view terminus to a path instead of being on the side of a path so that they are emphasized. This is a Space Mountain vs Stitch Great Escape situation. One you walk towards and is much more popular, and one you walk by and may not notice.

And I also want to use sightlines to keep you from seeing something until guests get to a particular reveal moment, like the train station tunnels hiding the castle, or in the case of this park, the tunnels that hide views into Galaxy's Edge, Toontown, and Pixar. In all of those cases, guests can see into the tunnel and see that there is something beyond, but can't get the full picture until you enter, moving guests forward. In Pixar Place, you can see the start of Monstropolis through the tunnel straight ahead, but are blocked from seeing Monsters Inc. until you are in the land.


Considering scale is also important. There is less of a rule here or guidelines to follow besides just that I try to be conscious of fitting into the scale of the context. Like I said, I considered building a giant helicarrier for the marvel land, but it would overpower Hollywood Boulevard and the center of the park, which would hurt the overall park. The new element should naturally fit in to the land and park. Unless of course it is meant to stand out, and then playing with scale can be useful, like how Pandora is over scale to the park, making it even more impressive and other wordly.

For an example in this park concept, I decided to scale down the rockwork of Radiator Springs compared to the California version because it is the backdrop to a much smaller and more intimate land, and I did not want it to be overtly visible from the other Pixar mini lands. Original Radiator Springs would be visible from the whole park, but that would not work.

Compression and expansion is a frequent tool as well and is basically the idea of alternating the experience of space to create transition, sequence, and enclosure. I wrote about that too in one of the essays linked above. Among the benefits are that compression and release encourages movement as you feel the need to continue to expanded areas, like the narrow Main Street funneling you towards the open hub. Also, the technique can create "rooms" out of the open park, better creating individual themed worlds. That was the idea for the individual worlds in Pixar Place. Create compression moments between the areas and then expand to a wider specific world.


Last element to think about is how the lands and spaces of the park are connected. I look at the node diagram of the main gathering spaces and pathways of the park to see how they flow and how they balance. You don't want many dead end nodes or areas that are too dense with pathways. And you want the pathway network to be clear and obvious. Guests shouldn't get lost or stuck in one area of the park. Ideally, you want the hub to be the core connecting zone of the park that your nodes branch off from in a simple diagram.

Node diagram of the park

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So this post is a really quick guide to my process and what I think about. For those of you who make your own projects, I hope this helps and I also hope that you find your own best way to work, because not all of us will have the same process. Ask questions in the comments if you have any.

I am currently starting work on the Animal Kingdom plan for this series. Hope to have it for next month, but no guarantee. 

Thanks for reading. 

How I Make My Posts: The Technology Process

A while ago I asked what kind of text posts you wanted to see soon, and the leading answer was a tutorial on how I make my posts. Not surprising based on the number of comments over the years asking what programs I use. So this is going to be the definitive answer to how I make what I make.

We're going to start with the technology.

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I draw in SketchUp, and I make the posts with Adobe Illustrator. SketchUp is free, Illustrator is not. But there are viable substitutes for both of these programs, and I'll mention them as we go.

To draw the maps and plans, you have a lot of options. I use SketchUp, I know other online designers use AutoCad, you could use Photoshop or Illustrator if you have access, you could use any kind of free graphics software, and technically you could even use Microsoft Paint. In fact, Paint is where I started so long ago. It works to start, but lacks precision. Of these, AutoCad would definitely be the best alternate to SketchUp, but it is not free unless you are a student.

I specifically use SketchUp for a couple of reasons. First, its just what I was most comfortable with when I started, so it was an obvious choice. Second, the ability to draw with measurement is really helpful, actually almost vital, to be able to understand the scale and relationships of space. You could also do this in AutoCad, but not any of the others. And last, SketchUp ties into Google Earth and allows you to import snapshots of a selected area as a base to draw on. This makes it even easier to start a park by tracing the existing map and then comparing to existing space. This is something you would have to do manually with any other program by exporting from Google Earth and then placing and scaling in the graphics program.

So if you are already familiar with another graphics program, definitely stick with what you know and see if you can make it work, but my suggestion is Sketchup. Can't beat a free program really.

Get it here: www.sketchup.com/

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So once you have the program, now what do you do with it.

It depends on what you are doing, but with the hypothetical case of a park plan, I start by adding the location and getting the Google Earth into the file. By the way, I'm not going to go into extreme detail about the specifics of using SketchUp, but there are a lot of really great resources online. It's also a very easy program to learn, so don't worry about having trouble getting started. I add the Google Earth imagery of the specific park or area of a park I want to look at and then begin tracing. Quick tip: if you add the imagery with just a single overall image, it is too low resolution, so zoom in and add a bunch of individual images that cover the same area.

Google Earth Images Placed

If I am making a new park from scratch, I start by tracing the entirety of the existing conditions. This is annoyingly time consuming, but I need it as the base to later make changes. I use the full variety of line, curve, and freehand drawing tools to make the base map, depending on the building or path or feature that I am tracing. As I am going, I'm also adding on the color scheme that I set up. When I started posting, I picked the color scheme that you are now familiar with, and have not seen any need to change it. The idea with the colors is to be diagrammatic while still being obvious what it is, such as light green for grass and blue for water.

Start Tracing Buildings and Paths

Color Scheme on Finished Map

Then when the base is done, I save off to another file (in order to keep stages of process as different files) and begin work on the actual design. This part can take as little as a weekend to 6 months depending on my inspiration and if there are any challenges that come up. I often reference other parks that I have drawn or open up new Google Earth shots to compare the sizes of public spaces, showbuildings, and paths to make what I do as accurate feeling as possible. This is where a program with real scale measurement is incredibly useful. A 20' path and a 40' path look really different and have really different functions, so seeing real scale is nice.

How I actually do the designing is a topic bigger than a single post because there is not a single process. The Environmental posts I have been writing are the closet thing to a guide for that step of the process. Those posts discuss a few of the rules that I keep in mind as I design. I am constantly thinking about and checking sightlines and views as I draw for instance. Of course there are countless other things I am thinking about, many of which I'll talk about in future Environmental posts. Or maybe there will be a part 2 to this post with some thoughts on how I specifically design.

So once the design is finished, the next step is adding the trees. I do this on a separate layer that floats above the ground level that the drawing is on, just like trees covering the paths. I make the tree cover by copying a variety of tree sized circles in a random pattern to fill the areas that are planted. It's the best way to accurately recreate the pattern of the edges and gaps in the tree cover. I like the look.

Adding Tree Layer

Once this is all done, I can export the image. If you have the paid SketchUp, you can export as a vector drawing, so that you can edit the lines in another program. The free SketchUp only lets you export as a jpeg. Either work, and I've done combinations of both before. Just make sure if you export as a jpeg that you bump the resolution up much higher than default.

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Now, the next program. For me to make the kind of formal presentation drawings that I show here, I need to be able to format it on a sheet. If you are just creating for yourself or don't care about the format, you can probably be done after you export from SketchUp.

I use Illustrator, because I had it already from school, but you can use anything that allows you to edit, resize, and add text to an image. A lot of programs can do this, so just search around. Photoshop, Indesign, free image editing software, Microsoft Publisher, and I guess even Microsoft Word could work (though really, find something better than Word). It really all depends on what kind of text and diagrams you want to put on your image, what kind of quality you want, and what kind of experience you have with formatting images.

In Illustrator, I use a template document that I created and add the exported image to the sheet. That's new for the update this year. The consistent template means all project images are the same dimensions, have the same text elements, and carry all stylistic elements from project to project. Highly recommend templates. I change the text on the footer, add any kind of diagramming lines or shapes, and add the text labels on the actual drawing. Export one more time, then upload, and then that is it.

Illustrator Template File

The drawing is done, I write the text, which in of itself can take a couple hours to write, and then I publish the post right to you.

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That is a really basic summary of what I do, but I hope that I was specific enough with the software and the general work flow. If you have questions, leave a comment. And let me know if any of you try to make your own projects. I'd love to see what you make with this method!

Be back next month with a Version 2 of Disneyland Paris Park. I'm retaining a few things from the Version 1 from a few years ago, but also making a bunch of interesting changes to complement what I did for the Studios Park. Check back second week of March!