E82 The Epcot Legacy
Education • Art • Music
Taming Leo
Redrawing the Disney•MGM Studios
April 15, 2024
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Just because something has been vectorized doesn't mean it's perfect. A prime example of this is the official TWDC vectorization of the Disney•MGM Studios logo, which I found MANY years ago embedded in the 2010 company "Fact Book":

 
From this, I was able to extract and replicate the original color scheme:

And used it for many projects throughout the years, until in the past couple of months when it came time to use it again for various 35th Anniversary designs. I noticed some major issues with the vectorization that were now too glaring to ignore. In particular, was the depiction of Leo the Lion himself. Sure, he's supposed to be rough, but when comparing him to several large-scale signage installations especially the most important of all - the one over the Studio Gate, I noticed he was missing a great deal of details including most of his teeth! 
 
 As a result, I spent several hours looking for the highest-resolution copy of the logo I could find. The best of which was a piece of signage on Heritage Auctions that not only retained all the details, but also his rarely seen highlights.

 

As you can see, Leo is no longer defanged and the "Metro Goldwyn Mayer" is now set in the proper font.

 

Perhaps the most unsightly of the logo's details was the MGM celluloid scroll, which I thankfully rebuilt several years ago for another project. and I thought I was done until I took a closer look at that mouse... 

It turns out Mickey was just as unsightly as Leo, especially in the hands and face so about 80% of our little "corporate symbol" (as Robin Williams called him) was smoothed out as well with new line work. 

What does all this mean? 
With more robust and refined vectors, this iconic logo can be updated for a variety of uses coming soon to E82 and here are just a few variations: 

Disney• MGM Studios with Dimensional Shading
Disney•MGM Studios with Dimensional Shading
Disney•MGM Studios in Glamorus 1980s Gold

And finally, this rather curious color scheme that you could have taken home with you in 1989 and coming soon to E82's Centorium! ;-) 

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