Kroger’s 2022 Holiday Spot, Art Directed by Michael Knapp
One of my happiest moments - Möbius came to our OOP gallery show in Paris!
contact: mike@michaelknapp.com
bio and filmography
Michael Knapp began his career as a freelance illustrator and commercial storyboard artist in his hometown of Pittsburgh, but his love for film and animation eventually steered him to the doorstep of Blue Sky Studios in White Plains, NY. After designing sets and characters on Robots, environments on Ice Age: The Meltdown, and sets and characters on Horton Hears a Who, he was given his first opportunity to art direct on the Academy Award nominated Scrat short No Time For Nuts. He then went on to Art Direct the Blue Sky Studios animated feature films Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Epic, and Ice Age: Collision Course. He was most recently Production Designer on Blue Sky’s animated feature Spies in Disguise and the Disney+ series Ice Age: Scrat Tales.
Since Blue Sky’s closing in early 2021, Michael has done visual development and character design work for multiple live action and animated features and streaming projects at Annapurna Animation, Netflix, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Picutures Entertainment, Bottlecap Productions, Amazon, DNeg, Break+Enter, Howdybot and more. He has also joined the team at Hornet Animation as a freelance Art Director working on several of their projects for Kroger (including the Annie Award nominated commercial “Today’s Holiday Moments Are Tomorrow’s Memories”), McDonald’s, Meta and Chipotle.
His love of visual storytelling can also be found in his latest monograph - Glance, The Art of Michael Knapp, The Art of Change, Sketchtravel, the comic anthologies Out of Picture Volumes 1 and 2 of which he was book designer, co-producer and story contributor. His work can be found in The Art of Spies in Disguise, The Art of Robots, The Art of Epic, The Art of Blue Sky Studios, The Art of Ice Age: Collision Course, as well as Spectrum 12 and 13.
Michael’s illustration work was juried into the Society of Illustrators Annuals 48, 49 and 65. He has also received awards from the AIGA and Association of Alternative Newsweeklies for his editorial illustration work and has received several Annie Award nominations for his work as a Designer (on Robots) and Art Director (on Epic).
His work has been exhibited at the Society of Illustrators (New York), The Norman Rockwell Museum (Mass.), The Katonah Museum of Art (New York), Galerie Arludik and Le Musée Art Ludique (Paris).
Michael is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Filmography of Animated Short and Feature Films
Art Director for the animated feauture film FOO at Annapurna Animation, 2023
Visual Development Paintings for an unannounced project at Sony Pictures Animation, 2023
2D Character Design Consultant for Harold and the Purple Crayon at Sony Pictures Entertainment/ Bottlecap Productions, 2022
Various Unannounced Feature Projects at Netflix - Visual Development, Character Design, 2021
The Great Gatsby - Character Design, feature animated film in development by Howdybot and DNeg, 2021
Ice Age: Scrat Tales Short Series - Production Designer, produced at Blue Sky for Disney+, 2022
Spies in Disguise - Production Designer, 2019
Ice Age: Collision Course - Art Director, Title Design 2016
Epic - Art Director, 2013
Ice Age: Continental Drift - Visual Development, 2012
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - Art Director, 2009
No Time For Nuts - Art Director, 2006
Horton Hears A Who - Character and Environment Design, 2008
Ice Age: The Meltdown - Visual Development, Environment Design, 2006
Robots - Visual Development, Character and Environment Design, Graphic Design 2005
Ice Age - Additional Matte Paintings, 2002
Previous clients include: Random House, Ominiky Editions, Saatchi & Saatchi, ReelFX, Pitt Magazine, Carnegie Mellon Magazine, Pittsburgh Technology Council, The History Channel, Bozell Kamstra, Philadelphia Weekly, Vance Wright Adams, Baylor Line Magazine, Diversity, Inc. Magazine.