The Story of Designer Steve Tatham, Imagineer and Dream Maker

“One of the world’s leading theme park designers,” according to Archinect News, Steve Tatham has spent 30 years as a Walt Disney Imagineer and theme park designer for Universal Creative, which has been a dream come true for Steve. He’s proud to have been named by Blooloop as one of the theme park business’ most influential people.

Since the age of nine, when he saw the flash flood roaring toward his tram while a guest on the Universal Studios tour, Steve wanted to be a theme park designer. “Somebody had to make this up. It was someone’s job to create this from nothing. That would be the coolest job in the world,” he thought, as he wandered through the park that day with his family. And it turns out, IT IS the coolest job in the world. After college jobs working as both a Jungle Cruise Skipper at Disneyland and a Tour Guide at Universal Studios Hollywood, he’s been happily making magic designing theme parks for Walt Disney Imagineering and Universal Studios Creative for more than thirty years.

His successful track record in writing, producing, directing, designing and leading creative efforts in the online, interactive and theme park realms is grounded in vision, innovative ideas, team leadership and ability to pitch ideas that get sold, developed and built, from low-budget to multi-billion-dollar projects.

He’s figured out the magical alchemy that leads to the surprise and delight of millions of guests each year and how it can be translated into endeavors that must connect emotionally to people. His message is simple and clear: bringing great ideas to life is the product of imagination, passion and rigorous process. He’d love to work with you to bring out your best creative self.

The Creative Inspiration Talks

For more than fifteen years, Steve has been holding weekly closed-door sessions for his design teams. In these exclusive chats, he shares what he’s learned in his career. He also interviews creative people about their process and their ideas about creativity. He has interviewed well-known talent, as well as his own team members to talk about their personal creative projects. These have evolved over the years to become master classes in creativity. Yui, an art director on Steve’s team in Osaka, said, “ I love coming to work on Thursdays because I know it’s time for Creative Inspiration. It’s like getting paid to go to a graduate school-level education in design and creativity.” These Creative Inspiration seminars have become the basis for the talks he’s now taking public. He’s combining what he’s learned in his own practice as well as what great talents, including many Disney Legends, have shared with him.