Environment Designer

Environment Designers visually explore and collaborate in the creation of story-driven animated worlds and their interior logic through the depiction of design ideas, dramatic story moments, mood/tonal pieces, and prop and vehicle designs that all serve a film’s narrative needs. Artists also prepare technical designs for downstream departments including technical orthographic drawings, breakdowns, and full render texture reference to inform the art direction of downstream departments.

Learn more about our filmmaking process here.

We’re looking for Environment Designers who have a rich imagination, a sense of whimsy and appeal, stylistic versatility, and masterful drawing and painting skills. Expertise in design, perspective, color, both architectural and organic forms, and a general knowledge of the CG process are also key skills in breathing life into our worlds. The ability to work both traditionally and in digital media including 3d is appreciated.

We welcome artists who will bring inspirational and unexpected ideas and research to our filmmaking and our team. We encourage and embrace original thinking and passion.

• Design inspiring worlds, spaces, and moments based on a director’s vision that convey information and storytelling
• Translate designs into detailed technical drawings and surfacing rendering to support collaboration across downstream departments
• Communicate with downstream departments to clarify requests, provide context, and find solutions
• Authenticate your designs with thoughtful research and inspire through your art
• Collaborate thoughtfully and respond constructively to direction

• Ability to bring unique and interesting solutions to design challenges
• Ability to create cinematic compositions that convey storytelling, creating “shots” instead of illustrations
• Ability to evoke mood and feeling in your work that enhances the storytelling of your images
• Ability to utilize dynamic relationships of color & value structures to convey specific emotions and story points
• Adaptability to varying film styles and director tastes, reinforcing and furthering the established style as needed
• Adaptability to the different stages within a film (such as development, production, marketing, etc) as well as evolving workflows and tools
• Openness to new approaches, workflows, and tools and risks failure responsibly

• Proficiency in Photoshop
• Professional experience required, feature animation experience preferred
• Bachelors degree or equivalent experience

• Paintings and environment designs that demonstrate stylistic versatility and a strong understanding of specificity, storytelling, lighting, observation, mood, clarity, staging, color, perspective, and appeal
• Illustrations of narrative moments, character and environment interactions encouraged
• Observational studies
• If any of your work is password protected, please include the password with your application (even if just included on your resume)
• Social media accounts may be submitted as supplemental material but should not be your primary portfolio (websites or multipage PDF files submitted via a Google drive preferred)

At Walt Disney Animation Studios, we believe strong design builds unforgettable stories. We can’t wait to see the worlds you’ll help us create!

The pay rate for this role in Burbank, California is $60.69 - $71.68 per hour, which follows the pay scale agreed upon in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The base pay actually offered may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience, among other factors. Select benefits may be provided as part of the compensation package, such as medical, financial, and/or other benefits.

To learn more about our benefits visit: