Crayola Experience Orlando opened in July 2015. The newest Florida Mall location, minutes from the Orlando International Airport and major theme parks, contains 25 hands-on attractions. Guests create glowing designs on backlit doodle boards in “Doodle in the Dark,” or project their own digital art on the wall in “Art Alive!” They can personalize and print a Crayola crayon label and wrap it around their crayon to create a custom, unique souvenir in “Wrap It Up!”
In “Be A Star,” green-screen technology lets guests become part of their own personalized coloring page, starring with whimsical crayon characters, which they may then print on paper, color, and take home. (Or print on a t-shirt, canvas or puzzle.)
George Wade, president of Bay Laurel Advisors, contracted to Crayola as owner’s rep and project manager for Crayola Experience. Experiential designers Weber Group worked with Crayola to develop the overall creative vision for the attraction. The lead project team included Crayola’s Facility Engineering department; the architectural and construction division at Hallmark; the Building Construction division at Simon Properties, and General Contractor J. Raymond Construction Corp.
Additionally, Daniel Aylward, of Worldwide Leisure Management, who was part of the Crayola Experience team as a consultant, is now COO of Crayola Attractions.
In addition to Visual Terrain, the team also included (alphabetically listed) 37 Volts Lighting Design, retail lighting designer; Callison – Los Angeles, project architect; Geograph Industries for fabrication of the retail storefront and retail fixtures; IRES, real estate adviser; Magnetic Dreams, animation development; Management Resources, operations consultant; RAW Media Teknologies, audio video design and implementation; and Reztark Design as project retail designers and architect of record.
Visual Terrain principal designer Mike Mahlum said, “We had several creative influences, the Crayola brand being the primary driving element. It’s what drove our fixture choices, and the lighting patterns we selected with them.”
Visual Terrain also worked on the Crayola Experience at the Mall of America, which opened in May 2016.
Photos: Mike Mahlum