Figment's Coloring Book

Today we can play with coloring pages of every sort and difficulty directly on our phones or tablets with more colors than in a Big Box from Crayola. It is as simple as opening an app and the colors appear with a tap of our fingers. Not so long ago, however, the idea of being able to color in a digital space seemed far away from our living room floors, broken crayons, and coloring books. Unless, that is, you happened to be visiting EPCOT Center and made your to the second floor of the Imagination Pavilion.

This space, known as the Image Works, was home to a blending of artistic forms, sensory experiences, and fun. Here a child could help put on a small theatrical production on a green screen, run through the Rainbow Corridor, and create sound with bubbles (one of my personal favorites). Guests could also digitally color with Figment’s Coloring Book.

Here, Figment and Dreamfinder show us how to use the activity center while coloring in an image that looks vaguely familiar…

At Figment's Coloring Book, guests would start by selecting their blank picture to color. The images included Figment, Dreamfinder, and even the Imagination Pavilion itself. A stylus was connected to the machine and became the guests’ paintbrush. On the panel in front of the image guests had the ability to select from a wide range of colors, but also shapes that you would like to draw in. The circles, squares, triangles, and octagons could all be used as base shapes, and could even be completely filled in or left as outlines. In fact, there was even a Figment shape that you could use to color with. On more than one occasion my screen was an Imagination Pavilion filled with Figment stamps. There were plenty of ways for a guest to finesse their drawing skills, but more often than not, each picture had a wonderful outline with large swathes of bright colors strewn across it. Most guests didn’t stay within the lines, but it didn’t matter because they had a smile on their faces.

The sheer size of each station at Figment’s Coloring Book made it seem as if this technology would never make it into our own homes, much less our pockets. Yet, today coloring apps are amongst some of the most popular available. While some of the experiences in the Image Works were pure works of fun and imagination, others were a bit ahead of their time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear a Big Box calling my name.