Ken Sugimori

Ken Sugimori (杉森建), born on January 27, 1966, currently sits on the Board of the Pokémon Company and also acts as the Art Director for the franchise. He is responsible for drawing the official artwork for every Pokémon.

History
Sugimori became friends with Satoshi Tajiri in early 1981 when he began illustrating for Tajiri's Game Freak magazine. In the beginning he submitted work on a freelance basis, as he wanted to pursue a career as a manga artist, but later joined the company as an employee. Tajiri and Sugimori formed their own game development company, named after the magazine, in 1989.

Sugimori is usually credited with designing and drawing the 151 original Pokémon himself, however, this is incorrect; Sugimori was part of a team but he was responsible for all official artwork, as the company wanted to give the series a uniform style. He based his artwork for Red and Green on the game sprites, as it was the only artwork covering all 151 Pokémon available at the time.

For Pokémon Black and White, Sugimori directed a team of 17 people in designing new Pokémon for the games, although he always drew the final designs.

Pokémon Credits

 * Pokémon game series (Art Director and Character/Pokémon/Graphic Designer)
 * Anime (Character Design)
 * Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back (Original Character Design)
 * Pokémon: The Movie 2000 - The Power of One (Original Character Design)
 * Pokémon 3: The Movie - Spell of the Unown (Conceptual Character Artist)
 * Pokémon 4Ever - Celebi: Voice of the Forest (Conceptual Character Artist)
 * Pokémon - Heroes: Latios and Latias (Conceptual Character Artist)
 * Pokémon - Jirachi: Wish Maker (Conceptual Character Artist)
 * Pokémon Destiny Deoxys (Conceptual Character Artist)
 * Manga: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness (Author and Artist)
 * Pokémon Trading Card Game (Illustrator)

Other Credits
Outside the scope of Pokémon, Sugimori has contributed to many other creative projects. These include:

Manga

 * Quinty (Mendel Palace; Artist)
 * Jerry Boy (Smart Ball; Artist)
 * Valkyrie no Boken Gaiden: Futari no Megami (The Adventure of Valkyrie Gaiden: Two Goddess; Author and Artist)
 * The New "Sorry for Causing You Trouble"

Games

 * Mendel Palace (Artist)
 * Smart Ball (Artist)
 * Magical Taluluto-kun (Director, Artist)
 * Pulseman (Game Designer and Artist)
 * Bushi The Legend of the Blue Dragon and the Two Heroes (Artist)
 * Drill Dozer (Director)
 * Sega 3D Classics (Box Art)

Trivia

 * His favourite Pokémon is Gengar.
 * Zekrom is his favourite Pokémon from Unova, with Oshawott being his favourite Starter Pokémon from the region.