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Why is the Disney "D" So Weird?

2018-06-29 · explainer · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities · mode: Explainer · tags: on location

After visiting Disneyland, Hank traces the Disney logotype: Walt's many signatures, decades of signature title cards that presented a person rather than a corporation, and the early-1980s logo that took almost everything from a Walt signature except its unreadable loopy D, whose origin he could not find.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Disneyland after VidCon; why the Disney 'D' is not a D; Walt's many signatures

  • ★ Last week (week of 18 June 2018), after VidCon, Hank went to Disneyland. — 00:00:00 · VidCon
  • ★★★ Like most children of the '80s and '90s, Hank grew up knowing the logo read 'Disney' without understanding why: its D is not a D and its Y is not really a Y. — 00:00:06
  • ★★ The obvious guess is Walt's signature, but Walt Disney had many signatures; some resemble the logo, none has a D like the loopy D. — 00:00:31
  • ★★ Hank reads Walt's constant reinvention of his signature either as another sign of his well-known perfectionism or of a man obsessed with his own name. (hedged) — 00:00:40

00:00:52 — Almost 50 years without a studio logo: signature title cards from Snow White to The Rescuers, then The Black Cauldron under Eisner

  • ★★★ For almost 50 years Walt Disney Pictures had no logo: every movie treated its title card differently. — 00:00:57
  • ★★ A Disney signature recurred with slight variations, first as a signature under a thank-you to the staff in 1937's Snow White, last as a title card in The Rescuers (1977), never identical twice. — 00:01:04
  • ★★★ Hank's inner graphic-design nerd thinks the signature title cards were deliberate, unlike other studios: as if Walt and the company wanted a person, not a corporation, to seem to present the films. (hedged) — 00:01:25

  • ★★ So the name was the brand, not the branding: here is a man you can trust to make children's content. Savvy, Hank says. — 00:01:40

    “the name is the brand, not the branding”

  • ★★ After The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound used a nondescript serif font, a palate cleanser before 1985's The Black Cauldron launched the now-familiar loopy D. — 00:01:47

  • ★★ The Black Cauldron came one year into Michael Eisner's tenure as CEO, the first person to run Disney who was not a Disney family member. — 00:01:58

00:02:05 — Hunting the loopy D: the Peter Pan board game, the Aristocats end card, home video box art, and the logo's spread across Disney

  • ★★ Earlier designs come close: a 1950s Peter Pan board game matches the logo almost perfectly except for the D, and a real Walt signature has its W, looping T and circled I. — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ The closest precursor of the loopy D Hank found is the final end card of The Aristocats (1970), the first Walt Disney Pictures film Walt himself did not work on. — 00:02:31
  • ★★ The logotype with the loopy D appeared on the box art of Disney's new home video division; with the Cinderella castle and shooting star it soon became Walt Disney Pictures' first actual logo. — 00:02:44
  • ★★★ Someone behind the scenes in the early 1980s turned a little D-loop into a big bold spiral, so far that the first letter of one of the most iconic brands does not read as a letter. — 00:03:06
  • ★★ Under Eisner the logotype became the logo of the whole studio, then of Disney Channel, Disney World and the Disney Company as a whole. — 00:03:18
  • ★★ The D could easily read more clearly, as London illustrator Pencil Bandit's modified versions show, but that is not what Disney wanted. — 00:03:30 · London
  • ★★★ Almost the whole logotype comes directly from one of Walt's many signatures, except its boldest, most iconic and most confusing choice. — 00:03:36

00:03:46 — The magic of not knowing who made the D; sign-off

  • ★★ Because Disney is all about magic, which can be lost when you learn how it's done, we will probably never find out how the D happened or who made it; maybe that is for the best. (hedged) — 00:03:46

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In the description Hank wishes the video were 15 minutes long: the Disney brand reaches beyond words into a deep cultural idea, maybe the most powerful brand outside nation states. (hedged) — video description
  • ★ Hank also thanks Lindsay (of the chezapoctube channel), illustrator Pencil Bandit and Kade Fisher, whose DeviantArt piece charts the evolution of the Disney signature logo, for their knowing or unknowing help. — video description
  • ★★ In a tidbit cut from the video, Hank writes that in 1922, when Ubbe Iwerks (co-creator of Mickey Mouse) first met Walt Disney, the 19-year-old Walt was literally practicing variations on his signature, and the piece he seemingly couldn't settle on was the D. — video description
  • ★★ Hank concludes that the iconic D was likely not created by Walt Disney himself but by someone working at the company after his death. (hedged) — video description
  • ★★ Walt Disney's obsession with the 'Disney' image, his own and his creations', was certainly unhealthy and probably had seriously negative consequences for him and those around him, Hank writes, but it also helped create something wonderful. (hedged) — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: The Walt Disney Company · Walt Disney · Walt Disney Pictures

Also: People: Michael Eisner · Pencil Bandit

Projects: VidCon

Works: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs · The Aristocats · The Black Cauldron · The Fox and the Hound · The Rescuers · What's My Line?

Organizations: Disney Channel

Concepts: brand

Places: Cinderella Castle · Disneyland · London · Walt Disney World

Products: Coca-Cola

Only in the description or credits: Kade Fisher · Lindsay Ellis · Mickey Mouse · nation state · Ubbe Iwerks

Also centred on The Walt Disney Company: Disney Buys Star Wars and DFTVA!

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