{"id":24815,"date":"2025-06-03T17:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T22:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=24815"},"modified":"2025-06-03T17:57:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T22:57:14","slug":"a-lasting-framework-baylor-alums-design-seen-everywhere-from-shrek-to-disney-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2025\/06\/a-lasting-framework-baylor-alums-design-seen-everywhere-from-shrek-to-disney-parks\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lasting Framework: Baylor alum’s design seen everywhere from Shrek to Disney parks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"(L-R)<\/p>\n

Since graduating from Baylor four decades ago,\u00a0Doug Rogers (BFA ’82) has truly had a fairy tale career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Friends<\/em> and The Drew Carey Show<\/em>, to Shrek<\/em> and Tangled<\/em>, to the castles at Disney Shanghai<\/a> and Hong Kong (pictured above left), to Turning Point Ministries’ Why the Nativity?<\/em><\/a>, he\u2019s seen a myriad of projects come to life.<\/p>\n

When we caught up with Rogers recently, he mentioned a few of his latest projects, including having his work in an exhibition at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. \u201cInspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts<\/a>\u201d included Rogers’ sketches of the Disney Shanghai and Hong Kong castles.<\/p>\n

“I never thought I’d go to the Met and see my artwork on the wall,” Rogers says. “It amazed me how many people saw the exhibit. I was receiving messages from friends about the exhibit for months!”<\/p>\n

More recently, he designed the structure that houses El CapiTOON Theater<\/a> at Disneyland\u2019s Toontown (pictured above right) and is a part of developing a new park.<\/p>\n

While Rogers has a reputation with big names like Disney, he also takes the time to give back to his community.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been working on a cool project in my hometown that’s kind of fun,” he says. “We’re in the process of trying to save an architecturally significant structure, a building in our hometown. I was there a couple of weeks ago, and that’s fun because I usually don’t work with governments, but in this case, I’m having to work with the local county government. And that\u2019s interesting because I have friends that I grew up with that are now in those positions as county commissioners.”<\/p>\n

Even 40+ years later, Rogers says his Baylor experience continues to shape how he approaches life.<\/p>\n

“I grew up watching people who hated their jobs and lived for the weekends,” he recalls. “This is where I think going to Baylor changed my life and put me on a different trajectory. I chose to live for every day, not just the weekends, and going to college, particularly for liberal arts education, expanded my worldview. One of the neat things about Baylor is the Christian framework; it makes a huge difference.”<\/p>\n

Rogers remembers meeting Dr. Tom Hanks (the Baylor English prof, not the actor) in a Baylor hallway and getting together with him regularly.<\/p>\n

“We became friends. I would just stop by and have a chat with him. That’s how I started understanding what the liberal arts were,” Rogers says. “I like the phrase Baylor uses — ‘faith-based education.’ That was a big part of how I approached the liberal arts. We were able to have discussions with people who had different experiences from ours, be civil about disagreements, and come to a place where we found out that our differences weren\u2019t really what we thought they were.”<\/p>\n

Rogers continues to do incredible things. Whether talking with universities across the nation about his career, seeing Rapunzel\u2019s Tower (which he originated as production designer for Tangled<\/em>) in full scale at Walt Disney World (pictured above center), or doing a theatrical stage show with Al Pacino, he takes one day at a time and lives life to the fullest.<\/p>\n

Sic \u2019em, Doug Rogers!<\/p>\n

(Photos above, left and right, courtesy The Walt Disney Company; center photo courtesy Doug Rogers)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since graduating from Baylor four decades ago,\u00a0Doug Rogers (BFA ’82) has truly had a fairy tale career. From Friends and The Drew Carey Show, to Shrek and Tangled, to the castles at Disney Shanghai and Hong Kong (pictured above left), to Turning Point Ministries’ Why the Nativity?, he\u2019s seen a myriad of projects come to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-extraordinary-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}