When I was a little kid, I boarded a mechanical steampunk air machine and took a trip through a Kodak marketing stunt that, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, made me really well-equipped for creative directing.
I’m talking about Journey Into the Imagination at EPCOT. The original ride, NOT the terrible Eric Idle rebrand from the 2000s. Housed inside a futuristic mirrored pyramid and surrounded by mind-dazzling fountains, this objectively weird attraction in the middle of an otherwise edutainment-oriented theme park has left an indelible mark on my personality that I’ve never been able to even pretend to outgrow. I decorated my high-school textbooks with rainbow-colored Figment stickers and brought a figurine of the little purple dragon to perch on my desk on the first day of my first agency job.
Never ridden it? I’m so sorry. Let me fill you in. The dark ride adventure starts with an introduction to Dreamfinder—a whimsical Wonka-type with a beard and a top hat. Basically, his job is to collect inspiration from across the universe. To assist him (and illustrate the power of ideas) he invents a cute little guy named Figment, with wings and steer horns. From there, things get really crazy. Dreamfinder teaches Figment all about why imagination matters and what it can do. They manipulate color, play with sound, scare themselves with spooky stories, do magic tricks, go to space, lift weights, try on costumes, and sing the catchiest song ever written. In the end, Figment learns that he can be anything and do anything with the power of imagination on his side.
We all have sparks, imaginations
That’s how our minds, create creations
For they can make, our wildest dreams come true
Those magic sparks, in me and you
The message may seem cliché, but for an impressionable youth mesmerized by laser lights and animatronic dragons, it became gospel. By appealing to all senses at once, a ride can etch lessons into a brain that no training guide ever can. In many ways, my life is still on that omnimover track through the clouds. Following Dreamfinder, I’ve learned to spend a lot of time wandering around just noticing things. Then, those appreciations become inspirations when I pull them off my mental shelf and remix them together. Something cool that I saw on a telephone pole flyer gets mixed with a joke my friend told me and ends up in my next campaign.
And that’s not the only thing I learned from the Imagination Pavilion. If I need to write something for a specific audience, I use my mind’s eye to kind of become the person I want to read it. What would they like to see? Like Figment as an astronaut, I put on my conceptual costume and play any part I want.
I wish I could say that Dante’s Inferno taught me everything I know about the creative process. Or Joni Mitchell’s Blue. But no work of art has impacted my life more than Journey Into the Imagination. It’s an embarrassing truth for an aesthete my age, but a truth all the same. As it turns out, creating anything—even a humble subject line—is a lot easier when you’re reminded of the endless expanse of your own imagination. And to this day, if I’m feeling stuck, I’ll start humming that beautiful little Sherman Brothers chorus and get to work. Together, everyone:
Imaaaaagination! Imaaaaagination!
A dream can be a dream come true
With just one spark
In me and you
Read more about how our creative department tackles creative block here and here.