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Top 30 Animators That Really Know Their Stuff
If you’re looking for artful and elegant animation inspiration, you’ve come to the right place.
Over at the studio, we know we aren’t the best designer or artist. Guess what – all the expert were once where we were. In order to produce good work, we need to surrounded by great work. We keep a pulse on the design industry, and we take note when someone creates something amazing.
In this blog post, we wanted to show you our favourite 30 animators in the industry today.
As you know, there’s no shortage of beautiful motion graphic on the web.
So, we decided to separate the good from the great and give you the absolute cream of the crop. But let’s be clear—these artist aren’t ranked in any kind of order. They’re all great, and no two are alike.
Whether you’re a seasoned mo-graph artist or a weekend animator, these folks will give you the inspiration you need to push your art to the next level.
1. Tom Haugomat
Tom Haugomat is a Paris-based artist who regularly creates scenic illustration, motion graphics, and animation.
His earthy and pop-ish colour combination along with the skilful manipulation of negative space, brings out his style to the forefront.
His works can been recognised in campaign from Evian, Jagermeister to Volkswagen.
While his main title is illustrator, he regularly collaborates with other artist to produce motion graphics and animation. He also works as an animated film director with Bruno Mangyoku.
2. Guillaume Kurkdjian
Guillaume is another French illustrator and animator who went ‘god-mode’ with isometric style.
He explores many illustration styles and objects in the isometric layout – ranging from the classic vintage, lego to hyper- realistic. You can his wide ranging interest from retro cassette tapes to classic camper van.
In addition to his stunning illustration/animation, Guillaume provides design and photography services as well.
3. Yukai Du
Yukai Du is a Chinese descent, UK-based artist.
Yukai’s love for art started way back when she was 4 -5 years old. Although, her formal design education started from her days at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. With a turn of fate, she ended up at the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London.
From her work, you can see that her style lies in the intersection of textured patterns with a playful overlay of geometric shapes.
Yukai has created animations for notable companies such as LINE, MTV, and BuzzFeed.
She has also received international awards such as Adobe Design Award Honourable Mention and a D&AD New Blood Wood Pencil.
4. Rafael Varona
Rafael is an Amsterdam-based artist with over 500,000 project views on Behance.
His work ranges from a distinguished black and white animation, pastel colored infographic, all the way to unique animated animals.
His work can be found among the campaign from Google to 7-up.
Rumours has it that his spirit animal is a mountain deer.
5. Jorge R. Canedo E.
Jorge R. Canedo E. is an creative director and animator based out of Vancouver, Canada.
There is no doubt that Jorge is an animation geek. His personal works uses simple design to express complex animation. There is no lack of technical keyframe execution in his style. My favourite works his are Finding God in My Loneliness and his latest 2018 reel.
He had worked on in some of the best studio in the world – BUCK and Giant Ant.
6. Jonas Mosesson
Jonas is an illustrator/animator from Sweden, Stockholm.
Among all of Jonas’ work, you will notice that they are simple, so simple, that they become deceptive. His work is chiseling – discarding all the ‘okay‘ ideas. What left is nothing but stunning.
Strangely enough he uploads all his works exclusively in pink and blue color on his Behance profile. There might be an interesting story there.
http://jonasmosesson.se/
Behance | Vimeo | Dribble | Instagram
7. Wang 2mu
Wang 2mu is an artist from Shanghai, China.
He has a wide range of expertise including animation, art direction, and character design.
His takes his own design style and combines it with philosophy resulting in a sartorial and poignant feel his work.
He varies from ethnic, tribal, and 3D animation. Wang 2mu is certainly an artist worth checking out.
8. Vladimir Marchukov
Vladimir is an illustrator / animator based out of Saint Petersburg, Russia.
If you have seen some familiar themes, it is because Vladimir regularly collaborates with Dmitry Stolz some massively viral animations on some naughty topics.
His personal works and brands ooze a style that stands out in character design and color palettes.
9. Bruno Mangyoku
Bruno is another Paris-based artist.
His illustrations and animations are filled with detailed character poses, vivid colors combination and mesmerizing scenes.
More than just dreamy illustrations, Bruno’s work is extremely smart and conceptual. He is able to translate idea into simple illustration.
He has collaborated with other artist on this list, Tom Haugomat, on a project titled Le Meurtre.
10. Juan Carlos Cruz
Juan Carlos Cruz is a artist from the Canary Islands, Spain.
He has started his career as a 2D animator and character designer. Right now, he focuses exclusively on video games.
His love of animation and design is the key factor of the quality of what he produces.
11. Yaroslav Kuryanovich
Yaroslav Kuryanovich is another artist from Saint Petersburg, Russia.
He has worked on animated videos for big names such as Google, along side with Vladimir and Dmitry who are also on the list.
Yaroslav has a quirky, fun and bright style to his designs.
His portfolio consists of many works from different fields including music videos and product videos.
12. Nicolas Ménard
Nicolas Ménard is French Canadian motion graphic artist and animation director from Montreal, Canada – currently based in London.
There is a sense of 70s nostalgia when it comes to Nicolas’s choice of colors, film grain, geometrical shape and illustrations in his work.
He graduated from Royal College of Arts, one of the most prestigious college for the arts. His clients include MTV, Facebook, Ray-Ban, The New York Times, Universal and Google Play.
13. David Pocull
David Pocull is a motion designer, illustrator and director based in Spain.
Through the years, David has explored many abstract style and seek to understand it deeply. He constantly pushes styles to the limit and end up with a new visual style altogether.
His work can be seen on Samsung, Wired Magazine, BBC, Monty Python, Time Warner.
14. Evgeniy Yudin
Evgeniy Yudin is an artist from Moscow, Russia.
It’s known that the infamous Hideo Kojima himself has acknowledged Evgeniy’s work – and surely enough he’s proud of it.
He has a signature style of using 16-bit pixels in his illustrations and animation. Now, let me get back to my Atari.
15. Joyce N. Ho
Joyce N Ho is an Australian freelance art director and motion designer based in Brooklyn, NY.
The only individual on the list that did a TEDx talk, Get Lucky, the talk kick off with a amazing animation story on a porcelain plate. It’s a heartwarming story about her life and her views on luck.
Her current animation muse stems of the deep exploration into the patterns of nature.
Joyce work’s can be found on Nike and The Expanse (TV).
16. Sivan Kidron
Sivan Kidron is animation director and visual artist from Israel. Currently based in London.
Her works are big in colours and small in texture. From the untrained eyes, you can easily miss the details. As they say, the devil is in the detail.
Sivan has produced work for Google and in music video.
17. Greg Sharp
Greg Sharp is a New Zealand-born animation director and writer.
Greg add subtle film effects into his work such as the depth of feel and light flare – not many artist can successfully replicate this effect. Kudos!
He has worked with clients such as Gotye, Disney XD, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers and Cartoon Network.
18. Oliver Sin
19. Alexey Zakharov
Alexey Zakharov is an artist based in Moscow, Russia.
He focuses on 3D digital arts and animation. One of his most famous work is “Futurama in 3D”, which recreate scenes the famous TV in a photorealistic animation.
Alexey has successfully created 3D animations from photograph.
20. Carlos Rupit
Carlos Rupit is an animator, illustrator, and art director based in Mexico.
He combines illustration, animation and buena onda, cool in his work. His experiments with punchy colours and dynamic illustrations have created some the favourite styles that exist on the internet today.
His client include big brands like Pepsi, Powerade, Google Transit and Pixelatl.
21. Rafael Araújo
Rafael Araújo is a Brazilian animator, motion designer & graphic artist based in Los Angeles, CA.
His work includes a wide range of styles – a true versatile artist. It is no wonder Apple and Facebook are among some of his clients.
On his days off, he produces some of the most surreal GIFs collection floating in the inter-web.
22. Josh Edwards
Josh Edwards is an illustrator, animator, and art director artist based in Sydney, Australia.
His portfolio includes a wide range of style including 3D animation, live action-animation combination, and some of the coolest illustration.
One thing that’s for sure is that he explored really deeply in a style and moves on – never repeat the style ever again – at least on his Behance portfolio.
He has worked on projects for big brands such as NBC Universal and Kia Australia.
23. Aga Kozak
Aga Kozak is a motion graphic designer, illustrator and animator based in Warsaw, Poland.
She has put some of most beautiful isometric gif in the interweb.
Aga’s detailed obersevation of movement has allowed her to create characters layered with a sense of indescribable emotions.
24. Andrew Kozik
Andrew Kozik is a motion graphic artist, illustrator, and animator from Minsk, Belarus.
He co-founded one of the most well-loved studio, Lemon Digital in the Tech and Crypto community.
He has worked on projects for various ICO startup to tech giants such as Google, Unicef and Pleo.
25. Anton Ten
Anton Ten is a creative producer, motion graphic artist, and animator based in Moscow, Russia.
I love his motto to do great work – A close-knitted powerhouse.
He has worked on animated videos for startups and big brands including Kinder TV, Google Maps, Chatra.io, and Duracell Power Lab.
26. Maria Gusakovich
Maria Gusakovich is an art director and animator based in Moscow, Russia.
Her illustration stands out with the attention of details to use the use of light. The level of detail is paramount. It allows her to capture unspoken emotion onto the screen.
Maria specializes in art direction and motion design, with a focus on advertising & storytelling.
27. Yixuan Cheng
Yixuan is a motion graphic, animation and character design artist based in Beijing, China.
She has a wide range of style from the classic Chinese art-style animation to cute characters for stickers and GIFs.
Some of her work can be found associated with brands such as Burger King, Baidu and WeChat.
28. Jonathan Lindgren
Jonathan Lindgren is a Motion Designer and 3D Artist based in London, UK.
His work include 3D motion graphics covering all sorts of subject from technology showcase to goofy animated characters.
You can almost tell the Jonathan relies on using a wide spectrum of color palettes in his works. He has received multiple awards for his works, some of them are: Xiaomi Note 5 Motionographer, Motion Awards 2017 Nominee, and Vivo Y71 Motionographer.
29. Scott Geersen
Scott Geersen is a 3D motion graphic artist based in Sydney, Australia.
He focuses on directing and designing content for television. His skill set varies from computer generated animation to injecting life into still images.
Scott’s clients includes scale productions involving celebrity like Chris Hemsworth to TEDx.
30. Raphaëlle Martin
Raphaëlle Martin is a illustrator and animator based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
With a knack for contrast coloration in his works he creates serene scene using vibrant block of colors with a subtle and minimalist composition. This can be seen in his “Love” series, which present abstract representations of that well-known human emotion.
The Bottom Line
Animation is changing faster than ever. New styles are always emerging, and in our opinion, things just keep getting better and better. These 30 animators are pushing design to new places we’ve never seen before. This is truly a golden era of animation, whether in illustration style, infographic, character design, patterns, or animation with live video.
From the Sage team, a hearty THANK YOU to these artist for their willingness to share their work. Keep at it!
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About the Author
Bryan Victor
Bryan Victor (@bryanvictor_l) is a interviewer, writer and founder of bryanvictor.com. He is fascinated with design, useable psychology and philosophy.
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