Disney World at 50: The history and near future of its famed name tags

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

An enclosed laser etches employee name tags one tiny line at a time in the engraving department. The pins are put on the back after the names are double-checked.

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

The new name tags have names in the same blue that's atop Cinderella Castle now. They're bordered by iridescent gold foil and topped with Disney World's 50th-anniversary logo.

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

The current lineup of employee name badges include varieties that are themed to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

Angie Ramanand, senior pantograph specialist, removes 50th-anniversary name tags from the engraving machine backstage at Walt Disney World. The company is in the process of creating more than 60,000 new badges for employees.

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

50th anniversary name badges, at the Walt Disney World Engraving Department, on Wednesday, July 28, 2021. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

The Disney name tag design consistently featured a 'bubble' in the middle starting in the mid-1980s, allowing more room for information and promotion of theme park anniversaries.

Making new name tags for every cast member at Walt Disney World is literally no small order. The company is preparing to outfit more than 60,000 workers with fresh, bright badges that salute the 50th anniversary of the opening of Magic Kingdom.

The work is done partially by a laser-powered engraving machine and partially by human hands.

For this week's installment of Disney World at 50, a series that publishes every Wednesday at OrlandoSentinel.com/wdw50, we travel backstage to look at the making of name tags and also chat with an Imagineer about the history of the badges, including ones from the earliest days of Disneyland.

Disney's engraving department is located in the Central Shops building, northeast of Magic Kingdom theme park. After walking past ride-vehicle repairs, the paint shop and other maintenance and mechanical services, we went upstairs to see where the magic etching happens.

The nameless name tags are preprinted with WDW's 50th-anniversary logo at the top, "the most magical place on earth" slogan at the bottom and a "holographic gold foil" outline around the oval piece. We watched Angie Ramanand, a 20-year Disney veteran, load the blanks into trays that are molded with spots the same shape and size as the badges. Each tray holds 60 name tags. Within seconds, she has the entire tray loaded.

Two trays are placed carefully into the engraving machines so the type will be centered properly on each. The data with cast members’ preferred names and hometown information rests in a computer spreadsheet. Ramanand shuts the engraver's lid and starts the program.

A laser zips across the surface of the name tags, 12 badges across, left to right. Then immediately goes right to left. Repeat, repeat, repeat. With each pass, a little bit more of the name is carved out, creating blue type — matching the Cinderella Castle turrets — from the material beneath the lightly colored surface. It's a bit like an old-school dot-matrix printer. The back-and-forth continues down to the hometown line, and once those are complete, it skips down to the next row of tags for another set of names.

It takes about 15 minutes to complete the engraving for 120 name tags. It's going to take some time to get to 60,000.

The badges are double-checked against the list and inspected for damage. Then pins are attached to the backs. Ramanand deftly removes the adhesive and adds the clasp on, just eyeballing it. The finished products are put in plastic bags, batched by departments, and sent out via interoffice mail.

The base layer of the new tags is light, a pale blue, a pale pink.

"I think one of the coolest things about this name tag is not every name tag is the same," says Maria Ramirez, inventory manager. The splashes of color vary from badge to badge.

Manufacturing the 50th-anniversary tags is on top of the usual badge output for new employees, who receive a name tag at the end of their company orientation, replacement tags and similar work for Disney Cruise Line and Disney Vacation Club properties in Vero Beach and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

"We do get requests from different areas, so it's a big, big number," Ramirez says of the engraver's typical annual output. "It changes through the years." Disney says they are currently at "max production."

Disney World's original oval name tags were carry-overs from Disneyland, although the California park opened in 1955 with a different design, notes Stacy Shoff, a librarian with Walt Disney Imagineering.

"It was a metal brass badge that said ‘Disneyland’ that had their employee number on it. Walt famously had employee badge No. 1," she says. The park switched to name tags in 1962, she says.

The WDW design was a skinnier oval in 1971 than today, featuring names and a Disney World logo.

"It wasn't until later that we added hometowns to them to try and have more connection to our guests," Shoff says.

The design got a bicentennial-driven makeover for 1976 festivities, and by the mid-1980s, the company had settled into a new shape that was still an oval but with a "bubble" at the top. That allowed for more space for artwork and information, such as languages spoken and service pins. The looks changed for anniversary celebrations and some marketing campaigns, Shoff says.

Today, the proper way for cast members to wear their name tags is on the left side.

"In the ’70s, people wear them all over the place. You can look at the Disney look books … the ’70s was the era of the clip-on tie for a hostess, so a lot of times they showed them wearing it on the middle of their clip-on tie, on their waistband even," Shoff says. "At some point like the Disney look decided it needed to be prominently displayed near your face and make you approachable to guests."

Around 2001, Disney strayed from the hometown designations in favor of Disney-driven memories. That was part of the "100 Years of Magic" celebration tied to the anniversary of Walt Disney's birth.

Today, the backstage engravers also create the tags for Disney Legacy designees (a.k.a. the blue tags), who will also have a special 50th-anniversary design. There are variations for workers who speak multiple languages and cast members who work in specifically themed lands, including Pandora — The World of Avatar at Disney's Animal Kingdom and at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Pandora workers have their home planet listed; Galaxy's Edgers have their names stylized in a font inspired by the Star Wars universe style of Aurebesh.

"Imagineering has done kind of special name tags during projects sometimes," Shoff says. "Right now, anyone working on Epcot projects has a special Epcot name tag that they’re wearing that has a Spaceship Earth pattern on it. … I think that's kind of what led to having themed tag being a thing in our parks too."

The new tags were announced in May. Their public debut date has not been determined, but expect the shiny designs to be in place by Oct. 1 (the official anniversary date) and the day the resort begins its 18-month celebration.

This series

This story is part of the Orlando Sentinel's "Disney World at 50" series — a year's worth of stories leading up to the 50th anniversary of the historic opening of Walt Disney World on Oct. 1, 1971. More stories, photos and videos at OrlandoSentinel.com/WDW50.

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