# John Trauscht > Senior Graphic Designer at Pixar Animation Studios Location: Berkeley, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/johntrauscht I'm a 30-year graphic-design veteran, currently working full-time at Pixar Animation Studios. My first film with Pixar was Onward. My pre-Pixar portfolio can be viewed on my website at www.poptopstudio.com. I receive too many connection requests to accept them all, so I must limit my connections to colleagues and people I know personally – thank you for your understanding. I have always tried to answer DMs asking for career advice and will continue to do so as best as I can, but the volume has become too much for me to answer in a timely manner – thank you for your patience. Please DO NOT send me images of your portfolio OR story pitches. This will result in me having to block you. I am sorry for this, but these things must go through proper channels, and I am not the proper channel. Disney's lawyers are very serious about this, and I value my employment. All job inquiries and portfolio submissions must go through Pixar’s recruiting personnel. You can do that through the Pixar website. I do not have legal clearance to review anything — even to give feedback. Thank you for your understanding. ## Work Experience ### International Senior Graphic Designer @ Pixar Animation Studios Jan 2021 – Present | Emeryville, California, United States ### Graphic Designer/Owner @ PopTop Studio, LLC Jan 2014 – Jan 2021 | Brentwood, TN PopTop Studio, LLC is my personal design studio. After seven years of serving local businesses, restaurants, and several entertainment companies (small and large), I have taken a full-time position at Pixar Animation Studios. PopTop will remain dormant for the duration of my employment with Pixar. ### VP of Design @ SpringSprang Studio, LLC Jan 2009 – Jan 2014 | Franklin, TN SpringSprang Studio was a 5-year project built by award-winning veterans of the Design Team from Big Idea, Inc, which included myself. Together, we brought decades of experience in delivering creative solutions to meet client design, branding, and product-development needs. Our creative services included point-of-purchase displays, web-design, packaging, publishing, illustration, and motion graphics. Plus, we offered complete, creative development of animated-property launches including pitch-book development, writing and editing shows, live-show development, and music production. I oversaw or personally executed all design development to come out of the studio. I managed freelancers on projects and coordinated efforts with other team members to deliver quality design work that met client needs both sufficiently and efficiently. Clients included: Keith Urban, Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant, Big Idea, EMI, Creative Trust (for Jellyfish Studios, aka "What's In the Bible?"), DaySpring Cards, Sony PMG Essential Artist Services, Propeller Consulting, and many more. Team members eventually decided that we would plan the closing of SpringSprang by 2014 and go our separate ways. ### Design Manager and Senior Designer @ Big Idea, Inc. Jan 1998 – Jan 2008 For 10 years, I was a lead designer in the development of over 45 complete audio and video key art campaigns for children's properties, including VeggieTales, 3-2-1 Penguins!, and Larryboy the Cartoon Adventures, and two theatrical film campaigns. I have either executed or overseen the adaptation of said key art for everything from packaging, to ads, to point-of-purchase displays. I've designed consumer products such as t-shirts, toothbrushes, puzzles, trading cards and more. In addition to my daily design functions, I contributed as a staff musician to songs and score for many shows, playing mandolin and guitar parts. I also assisted the show production studio in designing and producing motion graphics for show segments using After Effects. Brand development was a natural extension of my role at Big Idea. I oversaw style development, wrote style guidelines, developed custom fonts, and directed and approved freelance submissions. ### Designer @ Wencel/Hess Design Jan 1995 – Jan 1998 Primarily developed packaging and campaign art for food and beverage clients. Also designed collateral for these and other business types. Coordinated projects and maintained key vendor relationships. ### Desktop Publishing Artist @ Equity Group Investments Jan 1993 – Jan 1995 Designed and produced items including annual and quarterly reports, newsletters, presentations, trade ads, t-shirts and event projects. Also developed project management system. ### Junior Account Executive @ Dragonette, Inc. Jan 1990 – Jan 1991 Dragonette was a Public Relations agency in downtown Chicago. I primarily wrote press releases for real estate companies. It was here that I learned about the design industry and chose to re-direct my career from writing to the graphic arts. ## Education ### BA in Journalism Loyola University Chicago ### AAS in Digital Design American Academy of Art ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jtrauscht - Portfolio: http://www.poptopstudio.com/ --- Source: https://flows.cv/johntrauscht JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/johntrauscht/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13