Doug Chiang, Design Director: Conceptual designers need to be good artists. Our job is communication through art. The backgrounds of each artist in the art department are often as varied as our skills. Some are wonderful creature creators, like Terryl Whitlatch, and others like Iain McCaig excel at costumes. But the common link that binds us all is the ability to draw well.
In addition, concept designers need to be world builders. We need to be architects, vehicle designers, costume and creature designers, all in one. Good designers have the ability to see the uncommon in common objects.
Doug Chiang served as the Design Director for Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, and one of three Concept Design Supervisors for Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. He studied film at UCLA before becoming a Clio Award-winning commercial director and designer. In 1989, Chiang became a Visual Effects Art Director at ILM where he worked on such films as Terminator 2, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump, Back to the Future II and The Doors. As a director of independent films, Chiang has won many regional and national awards and his paintings are exhibited nationally in a variety of publications.
