Theme Park Design & The Art of Themed Entertainment

Want to design a theme park?

Over the past century, theme parks have created worlds where pirates still loot Caribbean towns, where daring adventurers explore booby-trapped temples, and where superheroes swing from New York skyscrapers - and allowed us to step into them too. This is a book about how to design those fantastic places, and the ingenuity that goes into their creation.

This is a handbook for the practicing designer, a textbook for the aspiring student, and a behind the scenes guidebook for the theme park fan, building on hundreds of interviews with accomplished designers from Walt Disney Imagineering, Universal Creative, Merlin Entertainments, and more. Theme Park Design & The Art of Themed Entertainment explores everything from the stories, themes, and characters that theme parks bring to life, to the business models, processes, and techniques that allow them to do it.

From rocket ships to roller coasters, fairy tales to fireworks, and dinosaurs to dark rides, never before has a book dived so deep into the art form of themed entertainment.

Theme Park Design & The Art of Themed Entertainment aims to be the most in-depth book on theme park design ever written, documenting for professional designers, theme park design students, and curious theme park fans, the fascinating processes and techniques that go into creating the amazing worlds of theme park design.
"This is the most thorough book on theme park design I have ever seen. One that quotes real designers with priceless knowledge." - Peter Alexander, Lead Designer of Universal Studios Florida "I can't imagine a person contemplating a role in themed entertainment not coming out of this immersive experience inside David Younger's mind without the equivalent of a Master's Degree in the psychology of the themed experience." - Tony Baxter, Lead Designer of Disneyland Paris "An invaluable reference for both the practicing designer and for anyone who wants to learn this art form." - Anthony Esparza, Chief Creative Officer of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment "A comprehensive textbook that codifies theme park design in a way that no single book has achieved before it." - Craig Hanna, Chief Creative Officer at The Thinkwell Group "David Younger has distilled the theme park design and production process from a vast cloud of pixie dust into a thoroughly-researched and incredibly detailed account of how dreams are made. It's the perfect balance of pull-back-the-curtain magic and intelligent discussion of theme parks from concept to completion." - Garner Holt, Chief Executive Officer at Garner Holt Productions "David Younger has created one of the finest studies of the themed entertainment industry ever attempted. It is a comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of every aspect of this most complex design discipline from the micro to the macro levels without once becoming heavy handed." - Steve Kirk, Lead Designer of Tokyo DisneySea "Probably the most comprehensive summation of themed design committed to print. David Younger has really pulled it all together, in one very readable package." - Joe Lanzisero, Lead Designer of the Disney Dream Cruise Ship (2010) "Theme Park Design is an amazing compendium of theme park and themed entertainment knowledge. This book covers the who, what, where, and why of creating themed entertainment projects and includes personal insights from the top thought leaders and designers who have shaped the theme park industry over the last sixty years. This is a must read for anyone interested in this highly creative and technical industry." - Monte Lunde, Founder of the Themed Entertainment Association "The art of theme park design involves more alchemy than it does art or science, and much of the secret sauce resides behind the obvious surface. Perhaps that's why so little has been written about the subject, let alone anything of practical value. David Younger's book is the first to break down many of these illusive and temporal theories into distinct, understandable, and enlightening observations." - Tom Morris, Lead Designer of Hong Kong Disneyland "Expertise is real, and, at least in part, quantifiable, as David Younger's magnum opus demonstrates. By amassing the communal knowledge of this disparate and diverse group into a single opus, David Younger has provided us all with a landmark in our intellectual space." - Joe Rohde, Lead Designer of Disney's Animal Kingdom "In this insightful book, David Younger burrows into the theme park industry in an intelligent and thorough way, analyzing it from the perspective many of us take for granted and never bother to articulate. This book will become the definitive work to guide theme park designers." - John Wardley, Lead Designer of Alton Towers