Today we’d like to introduce you to George Berlin.
George, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve been drawing and animating cartoons since I was just 8 years old- starting with flipbooks of tanks running over worried stick men drawn in the margins of my favorite Moby Dick book. This got me hooked on cartooning, drawing superheroes and comics, and art throughout high school- then into hand-drawn and 3D animation in college.
Since then, I’ve enjoyed 20 years of designing fun animation for commercials, creating immersive interactive installations for museums and live events, and illustrating all sorts of cool things for companies all over the globe.
My creative life has taken me to Pakistan to teach school kids storytelling, all around the US for interactive light festivals, and into boardrooms, firehouses, monasteries, and all manner of interesting places. My paintings of fun and whimsical monsters and colorful critters have sold to patrons all over the planet.
In 2015, I was selected as a featured artist for Chicago Artists Month (just 20 were selected city-wide) for my interactive photo mosaic installation My City, Our City. I led the team in 2016 that created the Design A Dress interactive for the Chicago History Museum’s “Making Mainbocher” fashion exhibit and currently have two installations in the “Art is Instrumental” exhibit at the DuPage Children’s Museum.
Right now, I’m designing a series of fun virtual reality experiences with amazingly silly universes to explore and working on a solo album of classical, folk, and dance music to release early 2019.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Art is about evolving and- most importantly- finding your place as an artist. The path has been anything but straightforward and rigid!
I came out of school as mostly a 3D artist, but somehow spent almost 10 years as a traditional hand-drawn animator… my painted art has changed a great deal from my younger days into a graphic style that can have as many different iterations as I’d like to try.
In 2014, I almost accidentally discovered projection mapping while searching for a particular image mapping technique used on globes and sparks simply exploded in my brain! I took my animation off of screens and out into the real world- creating immersive experiences on cars, trees, building, custom geometric sculptures and adding interactivity,
As a commercial artist, technology and the industry are continuously in flux and so my work in these areas have change TREMENDOUSLY over 20 years- hand-drawn art, Flash animation, 3D animation, drawing live at corporate events and parties, animating for the web, designing interactive installations, live VJ performances for DJ’s and band at parties and street events, and a few other things thrown into the mix for fun.
One of the toughest parts of evolving so much is making sure it’s clear what I do for the people who hire me- too many offerings that are too diverse and no one calls. Focus has been key for me.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We’re all about exciting and vibrant visuals- fun, candy-colored, light-hearted and whimsical experiences that stick with people, from animation and illustration to interactive immersive installations.
I love bringing interactive art to live events where you can SEE people’s minds being blown with something they’ve NEVER experienced before! Making people happy is a huge part of what we do.
We love to dream up amazing, fantastical, things and bring them to life. One thing we have that many others don’t is that we are designers, creators, AND technical artists. We come up with the great stuff and they can figure out all the doo-dads that put it together.
And most importantly, we can design and dream with the hearts and innocence of children- we’ve still got that view on the world where everything can be fun and great and amazing!
I’m most proud of our museum installations and interactive light festival experiences, because SO many people can enjoy them- our Chicago History Museum interactive Design a Dress had a line of people every day for a year who just loved playing with it and our Paint Roller Remix (created with Patchy Projects) at BLINK in Cincinnati was enjoyed by over 10,000 in a weekend.
What were you like growing up?
I really wanted to be an astronaut as a kid- with dozens of moon landing photos all over my room.
How cool would it be to drive that awesome dune buggy in Zero Gravity?!?!?
But darn it- astronauts need to know all kinds of math and other things that took away from my art-making time, so I settled on exploring strange new universes of my own creation instead with weird comics about crime-fighting insect superheroes, drawings based on old Norse mythology, and reading Ghost Rider comics at the barbershop.
I worked pretty hard at studying art, anatomy, playing with paints, and always having a sketchbook to doodle in. Getting called out during school for drawing in class was a pretty regular thing, but I was also in the gifted program since first grade, so I could doodle and still do really well.
I ate up fairy tales, fantasy stories, books about dragons and monsters, Godzilla movie marathons, loved Dr. Seuss and watched as many cartoons as I could- Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker among my favorites.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.georgeberlin.com
- Phone: 7734708060
- Email: george@georgeberlin.com
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GeorgeBerlinArtIllustrationAnimation
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/georgeberlinart
- Other: http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgeberlinanimation
Image Credit:
Painted Zipcar; Design a Dress interactive installation, part of “Making Mainbocher”; Chicago Loop Alliance; Illustrative animation designed; Voyager NYE party
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
