site specific: week 9

I went to Downtown Disney and found myself generally feeling a sensory overload, and thinking that might be the point. Each shop is allowed to go full out with its specific theme, which allows downtown disney to have the feeling of constantly changing worlds.This is done with different lighting throughout the strip of shops, with consistency in the hanging lanterns as well as the oversized lit up signs, making it have the feeling of a mini-city as well as a large outdoor courtyard in one place.

The shop I felt was successful in its lighting was the lego store. It followed the disney way of switching worlds quickly and had carefully thought its lighting plan full with color, strategic shadows on the ceiling, each display had lighting specific to its theme.

This robot had its own very bright cool white light, which made it stand out in its own sterile technical environment, while the dinosaur had a blue/purple light on it and the giraffe had a red/orange glow. Even with all these worlds within a world the shop's wares was still well-lit and looked like a store and not a playground. You could let these displays inspire your imagination, but you are still clear that you are there to shop.

The other shop I ended up in I wasn't expecting to find myself, but was pulled in by its bright sign and light. It was a small shop called little missmatched, and its light glowed from it, and stood out next to its neighbors. This was definitely successful in luring me to have an overload of bright white light pouring out of its doors, but once inside it was quite unpleasant, especially with the busy patterns and colors of the merchandise in the store. It seems like they mostly tried to show all the items they had as clearly as possible, but it ends up feeling like the socks want to make you one of them.

I visited both the spectrum and downtown disney as they were starting to close down and noticed that I liked a lot of the after-hours looks different shops had, and even felt that some of those designs were more true to the style and goal of the shop. There was one coffee shop and bookstore in downtown disney that had a really nice relaxed feel when open, but then I did question whether it was open or not. I empathize with lighting designers for shops because they do have to be well lit and even enough to look open and ready to accept visitors, and this must be in a balance with the mood and feeling they create.