Eddie is a Renaissance creative professional and entrepreneur with a proven track record in entertainment design that spans 30 years.

Sotto’s strength lies both in ideation and team based execution, skills he honed as Senior Vice President of Concept Design at Disney’s Imagineering division, where he ran his own concept development studio. His portfolio at Disney alone contains $500m in built projects ranging from “E-Ticket” Attractions and retail, restaurants, web and mobile technology, including digital architecture like ABC Times Square Studios.

Born in Hollywood, Sotto’s cinematic style is largely self taught by having motion picture Production Designers and Disney’s original artists as his mentors. Theatrical design runs in the family as well, with his grandfather being a scenic and portrait artist at MGM and his Aunt Marilyn Sotto, a Costume Illustrator/Designer at Paramount and Universal, eventually landing with Eddie at Disney to design costumes there. Sotto’s obsession with experiential design thrives on creative continuity and detail, be it emotional or architectural, to make each project unique.

‘His portfolio at Disney alone contains $500m in built projects ranging from “E-Ticket” Attractions and retail, restaurants, web and mobile technology, including digital architecture like ABC Times Square Studios.’

The Company

SottoStudios/LA, established in 2004, is an experiential design and brand studio that is frequently tapped to invent or revitalize products as multi sensory “experiences”. In placemaking too many times it is left in the hands of architects, yet places are more than architecture, they are lifestyles that require a more macro approach. there was a need to form a firm that went beyond one discipline and do it well. Senior Disney “Imagineer” Eddie Sotto, saw the need to break down those formal barriers of architecture, marketing, and design by combining them in a single shared process that delivers the “wow” seamlessly.

 Why is your private plane experience not as rich or romantic as your Rolls-Royce or Bentley?” When Sotto’s team had finished infusing the plane with the details of a handmade classic yacht, they realized it had surpassed the car that spawned it!

This deconstructed process of working more holistically, along with using emotion as the core of a sensory driven “system of experience”, led him to form his own studio to accomplish this. Trained in the Disney process born from film, Sotto treats each client as a “script” to be emotionally mined, distilling that “wow” that engages the consumer and then designing to deliver that deeper connection on every level. The craft of using design to deliver emotion was something he perfected under the direction of many of the original artists and set designers that worked with Walt Disney, the master of “experiential design.”Sotto uses his “design follows desire” process to transform products, places and brands and as you see, we have many examples of solving to browse. Sottostudios is comprised of a winning team of professionals that are “cast” to each unique assignment. We are a high focus, boutique firm that only takes on select assignments that we hope are “hard fun.”

Look out for more incredible images and designs from Eddie Sotto

on Luxury News Online

As Described in Bestselling Books..

Made the list in the book “Who’s really Who. The 1000 most creative people in America”. – TED Founder, Richard Saul Wurman

“Eddie’s passion for new ideas and one-of-a-kind Adventures was a creative leader’s dream.”

– Imagineering President Marty Sklar, – “Dream it! Do it!”.

“Wildly imaginative Imagineer.”

– Disney CEO Michael Eisner – “Work in Progress”