kartooner.com

A little bit of time, patience, imagination and a copy of Photoshop CS2 creates playful results like this. At the time I believe I was channeling East L.A. (Cheech Marin would be proud).

In 1994, the Walt Disney Company figured out what they could do with a sliver of undeveloped land near Disney World. Executives decided to transform the swamp land (previously used as a holding tank of sorts for captured alligators) into a master-planned living community, deeming it Celebration, Florida.

According to Wikipedia, there are two versions as to the reasoning behind this decision:

One story for the reason behind Disney’s idea to build a community there was that Osceola County was considering taxing the land at a higher rate to recognize its potential, and so Disney chose to make money off it.

Another version, which seems to be more personal and friendly is that the Walt Disney Company was fulfilling Walt Disney’s original vision of EPCOT as an “experimental prototype community of tomorrow”. Instead of becoming a testbed for community living and city planning, his original vision turned into more of a showcase for current and future technologies; a hands-on learning center.

In Walt’s words:

EPCOT … will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise.

During the construction phase, the Walt Disney Company sought the help of world-renowned Robert A.M. Stern architects, Cooper Robertson & Partners and Michael Bierut and partners from Pentagram who worked together in creating a harmonious concept of “New Urbanism”. A relatively new ideal, New Urbanism is the synergy of modernism and futurism where residential and commercial zones would be meshed together.

Architects and graphic designers worked together in creating every minute detail in the town, from the homes to the movie theatres including custom designed manhole covers and street signs. According to one of the lead graphic designers on the project it wasn’t always a pleasant collaboration as designers and architects would on more than one occassion clash horns. In the end, the result was nothing short of spectacular; a neighborly community wrapped in architectural perfection, even if that sense of perfection has attracted critics who see Celebration as nothing more than a “celebrated” movie set.

I’m proud to announce that kartooner.com is now part of the 9rules Network, a blog network ran by none other than Paul “Scrivs” Scrivens of CSS Vault and Forever Geek fame.

As James Archer so eloquently describes:

The 9rules Network is a great endeavor that seeks to help content publishers find larger audiences for their work. The network has a narrow focus, accepting only a small number of sites that provide great content.

It’s also worth mentioning that 9rules is different from your typical blogging network (I’ll refrain from pointing fingers) in that the content is solely owned by the author(s) of the site. The agreement set forth is that both network and content publishers work together to expose the creative work to a larger audience. In short, the goal is to provide great content and in the process share it with as many folks as possible.

Thanks goes out to my readers for your continued support and of course Paul and the gang for opening the door and allowing me to step through. The end result of this endeavour is split two-fold; more quirky content for you to read and hopefully a bit more readers to share in the fun and conversation.

I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes, by author and speaker Zig Ziglar:

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.