Author: jdwells
The Hero’s Journey – it is perhaps humanity’s oldest and most fundamental storytelling tradition. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Star Wars, it is a narrative formula that consistently captures the human imagination by connecting our emotions to the trials, tribulation, and triumph of a character. This storytelling paradigm is...
What’s the function of a conjunction? Where does a bill sit? And why is three such a magic number? If you grew up any time after 1973, these questions elicit a soundtrack of earworms that you hummed quietly to yourself as you poured over your grammar, civics, and algebra exams....
ORLANDO, FLORIDA, June 1, 2022 – Orlando-based experience design firm IDEAS has been tapped by local developer Bahía Urbana Redevelopment, LLC to re-imagine the Port of San Juan destination experience at Bahía Urbana in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The $118 million project will offer integrated adjacency to San Juan’s cruise...
ORLANDO, FLORIDA, April 19 – IDEAS, an Orlando-based brand and experience design firm, will join respected circular economy consultancy Yorth Group to present Circular Economy and Net-Positive Development in Themed Entertainment at the greenloop attractions conference on April 19 at 11am EDT. The presentation will feature IDEAS Chief Storytelling Officer...
“You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story…” It is hard to deny the salience of this lyric penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda in his Broadway smash Hamilton. Still, it is difficult not to catch a whiff of irony, as the show itself dramatizes and in some...
Whether you’re religious or not, you can’t deny that humans delight in few things more than playing God. While usually an accusation imputed to politicians, executives, and scientists, there are none so guilty of divine imitation as writers. Cloistered in our messy rooms, our brains imbibe on the power of...
When asked to imagine what I would do if I were “emperor of the world,” my first instinct is to say “abdicate.” I’ve never been in charge of a space that’s more than 850 sq. ft, so I feel like the stress of commanding the infinite cosmos might cause me...
Since the release of Disney’s latest Star Wars trilogy, the internet has been rife with memes mocking the saga’s mercurial, millennial goth villain- Kylo Ren. Indeed, compared to the menacing machismo of Darth Vader, the tantrum-throwing, Hot Topic reject of a sith lord is not the antagonist you’d expect in...
I am not a religious person, but like many a skeptical millennial, I often find myself wondering about the greater truths of existence. Typically, I would never hazard a spiritual discourse in a blog. There are many heated internet discussion boards for that purpose. However, when I sat down to...
A couple of years ago, as a fresh-faced college sophomore proudly brandishing his self-engineered major of “narrative brand promotions,” I had a limpid vision of my impending career. It began with an internship at Walt Disney Imagineering and ended with my induction as a Disney Legend, with my handprints forever...
Working for a company like IDEAS, you can’t help but be constantly mindful of story’s role in human society. It is the hallmark of our species’ intellectual capacity, the ability to organize our sensory intakes into meaningful schemas of cause-and-effect. In last month’s blog on poetry, I referred to human...
I love words. Their sounds, their shapes, the way they tango off the tongue and lips. I love the creative combination of these weird utterances and am amazed at their ability to move men to both greatness and ruin. I love their histories and often surprising heritages. Most of all,...
