Pete Oswald facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Pete Oswald
Oswald in 2016
Born	Peter Jacob Oswald (1980-07-08) July 8, 1980 (age 44) Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Alma mater	Loyola Marymount University
Known for	Production design
Notable work	The Garfield Movie The Angry Birds Movie ParaNorman
Style	Animation Stop motion Book illustration Painting

Pete Oswald (born July 8, 1980) is a super talented artist! He's a #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator and a production designer for animated movies. You might know his work from The Angry Birds Movie films or ParaNorman.

Pete also writes and illustrates popular children's books. He's a painter too! Some of his most famous books include The Good Egg and The Bad Seed. These are part of Food Group series, written by Jory John.

Pete's Early Life and School

Pete Oswald grew up in Bountiful, Utah. His mom was an artist too, and she encouraged him to draw and paint from a young age. He went to Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. While there, he enjoyed playing baseball and basketball.

After finishing high school in 1999, Pete moved to Los Angeles. He studied at Loyola Marymount University and earned a degree in animation arts. Soon after, he started working in film and TV animation in Los Angeles.

Pete has many favorite artists who inspired him. These include famous painters like Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet. He also admired illustrators and designers like Miroslav Šašek and Mary Blair.

Pete's Amazing Career

Pete Oswald is the illustrator for all the books in Jory John's The Food Group series. This popular series includes titles like The Bad Seed, The Good Egg, and The Cool Bean. The Bad Seed was even called "kid-book humor at its best" by The New York Times. Pete and Jory also created the book That’s What Dinosaurs Do.

Pete wrote his own book called Hike. It was even nominated for a special award called the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. In 2023, he released another book, The Noise Inside Boys: A Story About Big Feelings. This book was inspired by his own experiences raising his three sons. Pete also helped create the children's book Mingo the Flamingo.

Designing Animated Movies

Pete Oswald has worked as a production designer and in the art department for many animated family movies and TV shows. A production designer helps create the overall look of a film. This includes the characters, lighting, and sets.

He is very well known for his work on The Angry Birds Movie in 2016. For this film, he spent four years helping to change the popular mobile game characters into an animated movie. He also worked on The Angry Birds Movie 2 in 2019.

Pete also served as the production designer for The Garfield Movie in 2024. He spent over four years on this project too! He looked at Jim Davis' original Garfield comic strips from the 1980s for ideas. This helped him create new computer-generated versions of the famous characters.

Pete has also been a visual artist on other popular animated films. These include Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and ParaNorman. He also worked on Hotel Transylvania and The Lego Ninjago Movie.

Pete's Painting

Besides his animation and illustration work, Pete also paints. He uses acrylics for his paintings. In 2016, he showed his painting series called Pacific Abstract. These paintings were inspired by the beautiful California coast. He showed them at an art gallery in Santa Monica, California.

Pete's Film Work

Movies

TV Shows

Awards and Nominations