Jose Iturriaga

Industrial Designer and Illustrator

Originally from Mexico, I’m an Industrial Designer that worked in the Trade Show industry for several years as an Exhibit Designer. That presented the opportunity to move to the United States, in Chicago’s metropolitan area. Even then, the idea was to somewhat make it into the Entertainment Industry, preferably as a Set Designer.

I then moved to California and worked as an Exhibit Designer while exploring options for a career change. Eventually I learned about the Art Directors Guild, in events like Wonder-Con and Comic-Con, and started getting portfolio reviews and networking with artists from different crafts like Storyboard artists, Illustrators and Set Designers.

I started doing Set Design and Props for Community Theaters and Independent Films. This eventually led to small gigs in Storyboards, as well as, Concept Art and Illustration for Music Videos, Animation and Video Games.

During the pandemic, I spent most of my time learning and working on my craft, all while networking and attending virtual events. Finally an opportunity to work as Junior Set Designer and Assistant Art Director for unscripted TV shows, was the first step that gave me the opportunity to work on shows like Jeopardy!, The Cube, E! Live from the PCA/Oscars/Grammys and many more. This gave me enough hours to join the ADG as Assistant Art Director and look for different in Film and TV.

As I reached out to Production Designers and Art Directors to build my network, I was fortunate to work as Concept Artist for HBO/WB’s Batman Azteca: Clash of Empires animated movie, Virtual Set Design for The Chemical Factory animated short, and again as Concept Artist for an indie Video Game called Mictlán: An Ancient Mythical Tale.

Then the show that allowed me to get my Illustrator card was working as Illustrator for Amazon’s Outer Range Season 2, coming out this summer. Last year during the strikes I worked doing Stage Concept Design for live shows in Vegas, as well as virtual Set Design for an event with Production Designer Collective and the ADG.

One thing that is important to me, is that whenever there’s downtime, I try to learn new things and keep up with industry trends and technology. Either during the lockdowns or last year’s strikes, I spent time practicing and improving my craft as well as learning Virtual Production so I can have more tools in my arsenal to hopefully work on many projects in the future!