Screen capture of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Website
Ask someone off the street to give you a definition for “the arts.” Go ahead – we’ll give you time.
Oh, and while you’re out there, why don’t you ask someone else the same thing? And then, just for the sake of research, ask one or two more. Now, if we had to guess, we’d be willing to bet that not one answer you received was the same as the next. That’s because, for many, the concept of “the arts” is not easily agreed upon.
Well, in Kentucky and beyond, one thing IS agreed upon – you get a wonderful arts experience at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts. Long defining themselves as the home to many of the city’s major arts organizations, The Kentucky Center has worked tirelessly to bring the finest in music, dance, theater and more to the commonwealth of Kentucky and to ensure the performing arts are constantly presented with the highest respect possible. Looking to create an online existence that aligned itself with the magical qualities and emotional experiences that their patrons receive, the Kentucky Center came to us, and Mission Data relished the opportunity to partner up.
Utilizing actual on-site artwork by world-renowned artists such as Alexander Calder, Joàn Miro, and Jean Dubuffet, along with access to a wide variety of compelling imagery and show art, Mission Data sought to create a visually-impacting presence as soon as you land. Providing instant and easy entry to items such as ticket purchasing, show information, multimedia, and box office calendars resulted in more opportunities to learn in-depth about the shows patrons will be attending, as well as some of the great community outreach programs and education support that the Kentucky Center has embraced. For long-time users of the site, a new feature gives show-goers the opportunity to pick their own seats, allowing for an experience that’s even more tailor-made to their liking. All of this and so much more combines into a one-stop, one-of-a-kind web experience that we hope jump-starts the glimmer of excitement in each patron of the Kentucky Center.
Ok, back to the earlier, “definition of ‘the arts’ thing” – bet you thought we forgot about that. One resource, Britannica Online, defines art as “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.” And there were so many different definitions, even internally at Mission Data, that we couldn’t possibly list them all here for fear of pitch-fork-n-torch mobs. But, with their stages overflowing with magnificent entertainment almost every night of the year, and now a new web presence to match? We DID agree, and we think everyone else will, as well – no matter how you define it, the arts are alive and well at the Kentucky Center!
I was chatting with a friend of mine who’s been working toward getting his company to consider a migration to Ruby on Rails. It’s interesting to me, because they’ve been using frameworks that are heavily influenced by Rails, but the developers there are resistant to moving to the real deal. They’ve started to lean away from PHP and toward Java lately, so naturally I suggested they take a look at 
Once upon a time, it was said that “Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.” To that same end, when asked to create a portrait of a man, each person will draw that image with a hand and eye loaded by a wealth of their own unique memories and perspectives. As we here at Mission Data create our portraits of Marvin Chartoff, some of us will think partially of a quiet, diligent, grounded and light-humored man that was able to maintain a balanced level of multitasking, both in his personal and professional life, that would have left most people clamoring over themselves. And here was an individual who could do it all with barely making a sound, often surprising with his hereto unknown presence in the office. Quite simply: it amazed us.