Vintage Disney Posters: One Screen at a Time

One of my favorite parts when entering Magic Kingdom, is looking at the amazing posters underneath the train station in the entrance tunnel. I love their vintage look; they are quintessential Disney, reminiscing of a time before social media, when posters were used as the main focus of advertisements.

What creates the vintage look that is so unique? It is a process called “Screen Printing” or “Silk-Screening.” The screen printing technique uses paints or inks that are squeegeed (yup, that’s the technical word!) through a stretched fine-meshed screen. Typically, an individual screen is used for each color. So if a design uses nine different colors, then nine different screens will be used for the application. This allows the Imagineer to target specific areas in a controlled manner. In the end, each screen is essentially layered and aligned to create a single cohesive print.

Let’s take a look at a Walt Disney World Monorail System poster from 1978. The poster is 30-by-45 inches in size, and uses eight different colors.

Screen printing gave Imagineers the ability to create large products. Disneyland posters used a 36-by-54 inch size, while Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris, and Tokyo Disneyland used a more economical 30-by-45 inch size. Imagineers also had the flexibility to use an abundance of colors and variety of materials.

Overtime, new printing techniques where developed and used to create more detailed designs, some that used up to 100 colors. Screen printing became costly and inefficient. It reportedly took one month and $30,000 in labor to create a sixty-colored poster! During the late 90s, with the emergence of technology, screen printing was retired. Today’s technology gives anyone the ability to create bold, colorful posters. The process is now not only quicker, but also cheaper. In the end, there is no denying the difference in the final product. Both techniques carry their own pros and cons. Which look do you prefer? The screen printing classic/vintage look or the detailed/bold digital look?