That Doom Buggy better come along soon...

This design is a mashup of The Haunted Mansion and The Haunted Mansion.

There's two fun images from The Haunted Mansion. One is the Hitchhiking Ghosts that attempt to accompany you home at the end of the ride. One of these three ghosts then appear in your Doombuggy as you approach the exit of the ride.

The other image comes from the other end of the attraction. When you first enter the spooky colonial facade, you come to stand in The Stretching Room, which contains four portraits that, while seemingly bland on entry, unroll with the stretching walls, to display more somewhat morbid fare.

The Quicksand Three are second from the right.

The stretching portraits are some of my favourite little touches in The Haunted Mansion, along with the moving busts and the creepy scary wallpaper.

This design is available on redbubble, for tshirts, prints, cards and stickers.

I originally designed a shirt based on the Haunted Mansion called "Foolish Mortal", which said exactly that, in a purple design on a grey background, which was designed to work differently between light and dark environments.

I decided, as an aside, that I would create a plain white version of the design, just in case people liked the design, but didn't trust the purple/grey colour scheme.

Sure, they've been enjoyed, but sales were cool.

But I really liked the idea of the purple and grey together, so I designed a new shirt. This time I added the Hatbox factor.

This shirt is a collage of quotes from the famous Haunted Mansion spiel, with the added bonus of having a "hidden" face which will only appear in the lowest light situations, supposedly.

Once again, interest was there, but it really didn't convert into sales.

I was more interested in the Hatbox effect than the typography, but after looking at the working files, I decided that it would be worthwhile to post up a version of just the text, one black and one white, as a design on its own.

All of a sudden, there's great interest in the design, and the shirt below went on to be one of the most popular shirt on redbubble for September. It also renewed some interest in the original design.

Now I'm looking forward to seeing photos of people at a Disney park wearing the shirts. That would be brilliant.

It just goes to show, sometimes you can't see the typography for the disembodied ghost head...

Welcome, Foolish Mortals...

So begins the tour of The Haunted Mansion, a mainstay of Disney theme parks around the world, and one of my favourite attractions in any theme park.
Why? The Haunted Mansion epitomises the drawcard of attractions such as roller coasters, flume rides and dark rides: scares without danger.

While a roller coaster provides the scares of high speed and sudden turns (and if you're lucky, loops), it also provides safety from danger, in the form of seat belts, harnesses and safety brake systems. Thus, you can be hurtling to your death in a rocket car, but in the back of your mind, you know everything is going to be alright.

In comparison, hurtling to your death in an actual rocket car wouldn't have the same widespread appeal.

With The Haunted Mansion, you are dealing with all manner of scary spook, gruesome ghoul and a bridezilla, but the scares are balanced out by black humour and Charles Addams-style visual gags.

Alternatively, if you were just stuck in a creepy house where the rooms changed size, objects floated around your head and the paintings distorted into ghoulish patiches of their former beauty, you'd probably not enjoy it so much.


The "Foolish Mortal" tshirt above is in honour of one of my favourite all-time rides. The design resembles some of the motifs found within the attraction, most notably the unsettling wallpaper from sections of the ride.

What I really like about this design is the way the colours work. While there is a white version for other shirt colours, the purple design on the grey shirt is almost subliminal in low light, just the barest of glossy hints. However, when you step out into the sunlight, the design almost glows against the grey background.

If you're a fan of The Haunted Mansion, you could do worst than pick up a shirt and declare yourself a Foolish Mortal.

Sure you may have 999 t-shirts in your cupboard...

...but there's always room for one more....