Anyone know if the same design team at Disney design all their steelbooks? (e.g. the Disney Zavvi collection, the Marvel series of steelbooks and releases such as this...)
I'd imagine Disney have a home video department that has people working for it who then either farm releases out to employed designers or design firms that (obviously) design the product. I wouldn't be surprised if every home video release is created by the same team, be it steelbook, amaray or otherwise. When it comes to regular releases, more often than not Disney use a variation of one of the theatrical posters. Steelbooks seemingly go for something a bit more 'creative' with varying degrees of success.
It's steelbooks that create the most issues as Disney are clearly big on saving money. It used to be one design for Europe and other regions, and another design for the US and Canada. This is why Marvel movies ended up with no titles on the steelbook, just the J-card, something that's starting to happen with US/Canadian releases (unless GotG gets a different spine). Disney don't care whether you or I love the design, or whether they match as the sad fact is, they sell regardless.
Disney DVDs and Blu-rays have never been consistent. First off, the DVDs had the 'Disney Classic' branding on the spine. Then the yellow oval, now it's the fancy writing. The new number design has been introduced before the final 3 DVDs have been released with the oval. Blu-rays have had no oval, yellow oval, fancy writing, picture at the top, picture at the bottom, misaligned spines and so on. Now both have foil O-ring packaging (for a limited time), but the amaray cover underneath and the colour of the disc within are pure pot luck.
Looking just at the steelbooks... Aladdin doesn't have the Disney logo on the spine. The Little Mermaid, The Jungle Book and Fantasia have coloured Disney logos, all the others are white. Wreck it Ralph has its title centralised on the spine, Bambi is too high and Mulan is too low. Frozen has no title at all (and a picture at the top!). Fantasia is matte, Aladdin is gloss. Robin Hood is embossed, Frozen is flat. 101 Dalmatians has a border, Pinocchio does not. And so on and so on and...
Unfortunately, whether a Disney title is a Zavvi, Amazon or HMV exclusive or simply a worldwide release, it's Disney and Disney alone that sign off on the design. Their overall opinion is, 'here's what you're getting, put up or shut up'. They've never changed.
