This article is about the production designer. For the playwright, see Peter Oswald.
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Pete Oswald (born July 8, 1980) is a #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator and production designer, best known for The Angry Birds Movie film series and ParaNorman. He is also known for his work as a children's book author and illustrator, and painter. Pete's work includes the #1 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Good Egg, and the #2 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Bad Seed, both part of the Food Group series written by Jory John.[1]
Early life and education
Oswald was raised in Bountiful, Utah. His mother, also an artist, encouraged him to begin painting and drawing from an early age. He attended Judge Memorial High School, where he played baseball and basketball, in Salt Lake City, Utah.[2]
After graduating high school in 1999, he relocated to Los Angeles where he enrolled in Loyola Marymount University and earned a degree in animation arts. He then began working in Los Angeles in film and television animation.[2]
Oswald is the illustrator of all books in Jory John's The Food Group series, including The Bad Seed, The Good Egg, The Cool Bean, The Couch Potato, The Smart Cookie, The Sour Grape, and The Big Cheese.[3]The Bad Seed was described by The New York Times as "kid-book humor at its best, both warmhearted and frisky — the kind that leaves adults, too, cracking up and grateful."[4] The bestselling duo also created That’s What Dinosaurs Do together. Oswald's authorial debut, Hike, was shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. He released his next book The Noise Inside Boys: A Story About Big Feelings in 2023, inspired by his own experiences raising his three sons.[5] Oswald also co-created the children's book Mingo the Flamingo.[6]
Oswald has served in production design and the art department on multiple animated family studio films and television shows. He is best known for his work on the 2016 film The Angry Birds Movie,[7][8] for which he transformed the characters, lighting, and set design from the popular mobile game into an animated feature film series over the course of four years.[9][10][11][12] He was noted for his work on The Angry Birds Movie in Vice'sThe Creator's Project, which stated: "Pete Oswald's fingerprints are all over the cutting edge of animated feature films, marked by a bright, colorful, slightly angular style."[13] In 2016, he appeared at Comic-Con in San Diego, California.[14] In 2019, Oswald returned to the franchise as production designer on The Angry Birds Movie 2.[15][16] He also served as production designer on 2024's The Garfield Movie. Oswald spent over four years on the project, taking inspiration from Jim Davis' Garfield comic strips of the 1980s in creating new CG versions of Davis' iconic characters.[17]
