Sunday, August 27, 2006

Disney Dollar Concepts




When I took over as chief illustrator for The Disneyland Resort, one of my jobs was to design new illustrations for "Disney Dollars". I was excited about the project because I remember when they came out (I was a child visiting Walt Disney World when they were released) and thought it would be a great time to do something different other than just using portraits of Mickey,Minnie, Donald, & Goofy as they had used for so long. Even the management showed excitement for a change and was happy to see something new,and approved everything I sent along for a concept.

Images were chosen and we were going to highlight Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 (It was being released that year) and I thought I did some concepts worth looking at. In the end, one week before the images had to go to the US Mint to be printed (Yes they are actually printed at the Mint and are considered legal tender) the idiots I worked for (Yes, they were two of the stupidest people I ever met) decided the illustrations were too avant-garde and might not be collectible enough and I had less than one week to redesign them from start to finish using portraits Mickey, Donald and Goofy.

Oh Well........Anyway- Here are some of the original concepts

7 comments:

The Laughing Chimp said...

Wow! Great artwork, truly inspirational. I'll sure be checking your blog regularly.

PS: Thanks for the kind comments on my artwork.

Patrick said...

Doesn't suprise me in the least. However, I love those bottom 2. Super nice.

Brian Sibley said...

Great images, Peter! On the money! (Though sadly not...)

Todd Oman said...

cool to find your blog. Funny before reading your post I was thinking wow this person should work for Disney consumer products. Nice stuff.

Unknown said...

Too Avant Guarde?! Wow, they musn't get out much. I love your work btw. Wonderful stuff.

Unknown said...

These are great!

Anonymous said...

WOW! I dont know if you read comments from older posts, but these concepts are fantastic!

As a collector myself, I say these would have been well received!

I made one of the images my desktop background!!