TAKESHI MURATA

PEOPLEText: Naoko Fukushi

A cover design of this month is designed by Takeshi Murata whose work was selected by one of judges, the Designers Republic in DOTMOV festival held in November. Although his animation is plane, it has made special space by the form and motion. We interviewed him about his recent activity and works etc.

Can you please introduce yourself?

My name’s Takeshi Murata. I live Los Angeles with my girlfriend Francine Spiegel and a terrier. I’ve been here for about a year making experimental and psychedelic animations. Before moving to LA, I lived in Brooklyn for 5 years, and graduated from art school in Providence in 1997.

What do you do as a freelance designer?

Most of my freelance work is animation, illustration, or character design, and I often collaborate with other artists. I’ve had a bunch of different kinds of work with a really wide array of clients. For the last couple years I’ve been fortunate to work with Karl Ackermann. He’s one of the three awesome artists that make Milky Elephant. He’s included me in some great jobs, and has thereby saved me from eviction more then once. Super-Jam with Karl and Human Face was one of my favorites.

Could you tell me about Human Face website? What kind of website is it?

Human Face was a site I started with two other friends Jon Brzyski and Paul Kim in 1998. We used it as place to experiment with art and animation. As we started to get more freelance work together, we also used Human Face as a business name. This made things pretty confusing. Clients would go to our site looking for a resume or something, and would instead find a drawing of a werewolf or a 3D modeled man watching TV in his underwear. Since then our personal work has gone in different directions, and we’ve stopped updating the site. We still work together and use the Human Face as our collaborative business name.

Your work “Melter 2” was selected by The Designers Republic at DOTMOV festival held by Shift in November. What’s your impression for that?

It’s a great honor. I entered the festival because I like a lot of the artists that SHIFT shows, and to be selected by one is the best. I think Ian Anderson’s short description of my animation is better than what I can do.

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