Paul Budnitz
Encyclopedia
Paul Budnitz is the President
, founder
, and creative director
of Kidrobot
Inc., creator of designer art toys and fashion apparel. He is also an Executive Producer
for San Francisco-based digital animation
company, W!LDBRAIN.
. From a young age, Budnitz displayed a mixed aptitude for computer programming and art. By the time he had reached high school, he was professionally coding safety analysis software for nuclear power plants and creating video games for the now-legendary Commodore 64
home computer. Budnitz attended Yale University
where he studied photography, sculpture and film.
magazine hailed 93 Million Miles as "one of the best films of 1997."
Budnitz became aware of gaps in the existing editing technology and created his own software that allowed him to edit a full-length film on a home computer
. Wired magazine chronicled the achievement with a feature story in their April 1996 issue.
Budnitz concurrently created Big, Inc., a company which sold modified vintage clothing including high-end Levi's and classic Air Jordans to collectors in Japan.
In 1997, Budnitz started recording the sound for a 16mm film on MiniDisc
, a new audio format that he encountered while on a trip to Tokyo. Budnitz hacked and customized the MiniDisc
players to accommodate time-code, specifically for film and sound recording. It was not long before this led him to found his third company, minidisco.com, which sold his reconfigured MiniDisc
players on the Internet
. By 2001 minidisco.com had become a $7 million business, running on home computers and using software Budnitz created.
, graphic design
, pop-art, and animation
. He also recognized the absence of innovative art toys in North America, as well as a potential fan base for this hybrid art form in the United States.
In 2002 Budnitz moved from California to New York City, sold minidisco.com and used the money as the start-up capital for Kidrobot
.
Budnitz collaborated with friend Tristan Eaton, an illustrator he’d worked with on previous animated films, to create DUNNY, a rabbit-inspired, vinyl figure designed to be customized by commissioned artists and MUNNY, a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) toy figure that Kidrobot
customers could customize themselves.
As the president and head of creative at Kidrobot
, Paul has worked with hundreds of artists, brands and designers from around the world. Artists include Frank Kozik
, Dalek
, Doze Green, Tara McPherson
, Gary Baseman
, Shepard Fairey
, eBoy
, Tilt, Mist, Joe Ledbetter, Tristan Eaton, Jeremeyville, To Die For, Junko Mizuno
, Mori Chax, Touma, Mike and Katie Tado, Paul Pope
, David Horvath, and many others.
In 2006, Budnitz added a complete apparel collection to Kidrobot's repertoire, co-designing the entire line. Like Kidrobot's toys, most of the apparel is limited edition and draws on the creative input of the artists of recently released toys.
In late 2006, Budnitz authored the book I AM PLASTIC: The Designer Toy Explosion published by art-book powerhouse, Harry Abrams Press. The hardcover picture book, with a foreword by Budnitz, geographically features the most popular and innovative toys in the designer art toy movement with chapters on Japan, China, Europe and the United States.
In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA
) in New York acquired 13 of Kidrobot's toys for its permanent collection. These include "Hello My Name is Dunny", "Bad Dunny" and "MUNNY 3″ amongst others.
Budnitz maintains an online diary at paulbudnitz.com that has become a hub for the art toy community. His regular posts include artist interviews, coverage of Kidrobot events, rare toy releases and photographs of urban street art.
Budnitz has designed or art directed virtually every product created by Kidrobot since the company's inception. He has also co-designed all of Kidrobot's retail stores and the Kidrobot Room in Peter Gatien
's CiRCA nightclub in Toronto
.
In 2006, Kidrobot
partnered with W!LDBRAIN, Inc. to begin working on animated films for theater and the web. In 2008, Paramount Pictures
announced they had signed an agreement with Kidrobot
to produce an animated feature film based on the Kidrobot
aesthetic.
While Budnitz continues to be the creative force behind Kidrobot
he is also focused on other ventures. He's photographed center spreads for ReadyMade Magazine
and album covers for Black Lab
. He also frequently speaks at conferences about business innovation and creativity around the world.
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
, founder
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, and creative director
Creative Director
A creative director is a position often found within the graphic design, film, music, fashion, advertising, media or entertainment industries, but may be useful in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well....
of Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
Inc., creator of designer art toys and fashion apparel. He is also an Executive Producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
for San Francisco-based digital animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
company, W!LDBRAIN.
Early life and education
The son of a nuclear physicist and a social worker, Budnitz was born and raised in Berkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
. From a young age, Budnitz displayed a mixed aptitude for computer programming and art. By the time he had reached high school, he was professionally coding safety analysis software for nuclear power plants and creating video games for the now-legendary Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
home computer. Budnitz attended Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
where he studied photography, sculpture and film.
Early career
During his undergraduate degree he started his first business, M.O.B., a custom clothing company that sold T-shirts and other wearable cultural artifacts to museum stores worldwide. In 1990, Budnitz graduated with an honors degree in Art and began working on two films, 93 Million Miles from the Sun and Ultraviolet. Both won awards at the Berlin Film Festival and were distributed worldwide. ArtforumArtforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
magazine hailed 93 Million Miles as "one of the best films of 1997."
Budnitz became aware of gaps in the existing editing technology and created his own software that allowed him to edit a full-length film on a home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
. Wired magazine chronicled the achievement with a feature story in their April 1996 issue.
Budnitz concurrently created Big, Inc., a company which sold modified vintage clothing including high-end Levi's and classic Air Jordans to collectors in Japan.
In 1997, Budnitz started recording the sound for a 16mm film on MiniDisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
, a new audio format that he encountered while on a trip to Tokyo. Budnitz hacked and customized the MiniDisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
players to accommodate time-code, specifically for film and sound recording. It was not long before this led him to found his third company, minidisco.com, which sold his reconfigured MiniDisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
players on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. By 2001 minidisco.com had become a $7 million business, running on home computers and using software Budnitz created.
Career with Kidrobot
In 2002 Budnitz discovered images of limited edition vinyl toys that were emerging from Japan and China based on cereal box characters and modified GI-Joes turned into stylized B-boys wearing streetwear. Budnitz recognized the toys as collectible art pieces that fused a variety of artistic disciplines: graffitiGraffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
, graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, pop-art, and animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
. He also recognized the absence of innovative art toys in North America, as well as a potential fan base for this hybrid art form in the United States.
In 2002 Budnitz moved from California to New York City, sold minidisco.com and used the money as the start-up capital for Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
.
Budnitz collaborated with friend Tristan Eaton, an illustrator he’d worked with on previous animated films, to create DUNNY, a rabbit-inspired, vinyl figure designed to be customized by commissioned artists and MUNNY, a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) toy figure that Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
customers could customize themselves.
As the president and head of creative at Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
, Paul has worked with hundreds of artists, brands and designers from around the world. Artists include Frank Kozik
Frank Kozik
Frank Kozik is an American graphic artist who has worked with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Melvins, The Offspring and Butthole Surfers. Kozik runs Man's Ruin Records, a media outlet and record label, and has published several books including Man's Ruin:...
, Dalek
Dalek
The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Within the series, Daleks are cyborgs from the planet Skaro, created by the scientist Davros during the final years of a thousand-year war against the Thals...
, Doze Green, Tara McPherson
Tara McPherson
Tara McPherson is an American artist based out of New York City. She studied art at Santa Monica Community College and earned her BFA from Art Center in Pasadena, CA in August 2001 with honors in Illustration and a minor in Fine Art, working on Matt Groening's Futurama during college.-Career:Tara...
, Gary Baseman
Gary Baseman
Gary Baseman is a contemporary artist who works in various creative fields, including illustration, fine art, toy design, and animation. He is the creator of the Emmy-winning ABC/Disney cartoon series, Teacher’s Pet, and the artistic designer of Cranium, a popular board game...
, Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His...
, eBoy
EBoy
eBoy is a pixel art group founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital.Their complex illustrations have been made into posters, shirts, souvenirs, and even displayed in gallery exhibitions. They were founded on May 2, 1997, expressing their modular and collaborative approach...
, Tilt, Mist, Joe Ledbetter, Tristan Eaton, Jeremeyville, To Die For, Junko Mizuno
Junko Mizuno
is a Japanese manga artist.Mizuno's drawing style, which mixes childish sweetness and cuteness with blood and terror has been termed a Gothic kawaii or kawaii noir style. In addition to her comics, she designs T-shirts, calendars, postcards, and other collectibles...
, Mori Chax, Touma, Mike and Katie Tado, Paul Pope
Paul Pope
Paul Pope is an American alternative comic book artist. Influenced by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pope's stories evoke poignant, under-explored aspects of youth culture...
, David Horvath, and many others.
In 2006, Budnitz added a complete apparel collection to Kidrobot's repertoire, co-designing the entire line. Like Kidrobot's toys, most of the apparel is limited edition and draws on the creative input of the artists of recently released toys.
In late 2006, Budnitz authored the book I AM PLASTIC: The Designer Toy Explosion published by art-book powerhouse, Harry Abrams Press. The hardcover picture book, with a foreword by Budnitz, geographically features the most popular and innovative toys in the designer art toy movement with chapters on Japan, China, Europe and the United States.
In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(MoMA
Moma
Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
) in New York acquired 13 of Kidrobot's toys for its permanent collection. These include "Hello My Name is Dunny", "Bad Dunny" and "MUNNY 3″ amongst others.
Budnitz maintains an online diary at paulbudnitz.com that has become a hub for the art toy community. His regular posts include artist interviews, coverage of Kidrobot events, rare toy releases and photographs of urban street art.
Budnitz has designed or art directed virtually every product created by Kidrobot since the company's inception. He has also co-designed all of Kidrobot's retail stores and the Kidrobot Room in Peter Gatien
Peter Gatien
Peter Gatien was the owner of several New York nightclubs, including The Limelight, Palladium, Club USA, and Tunnel. He was once dubbed as the "King of New York Clubs", during his time in New York City.-Life and career:...
's CiRCA nightclub in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
.
In 2006, Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
partnered with W!LDBRAIN, Inc. to begin working on animated films for theater and the web. In 2008, Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
announced they had signed an agreement with Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
to produce an animated feature film based on the Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
aesthetic.
While Budnitz continues to be the creative force behind Kidrobot
Kidrobot
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot also makes Kidrobot Mascots, which are figures of their main logo. These figures are usually nicknamed KR and the number...
he is also focused on other ventures. He's photographed center spreads for ReadyMade Magazine
ReadyMade Magazine
ReadyMade was a bimonthly magazine which focused on do it yourself projects involving interior design, making furniture, home improvement, sewing, metalworking, woodworking and other disciplines. It also focused on sustainable design, independent music and DIY culture...
and album covers for Black Lab
Black Lab
Black Lab is an alternative rock band founded in Berkeley, California and currently based in Los Angeles and Montana.They released one album on Geffen Records, entitled Your Body Above Me, and scored two rock radio hits in the US, "Wash It Away" in 1997 and "Time Ago" in 1998...
. He also frequently speaks at conferences about business innovation and creativity around the world.