COHEN SANTIAGO
Born in Mexico, Santiago has a BA in Communications Design from Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, and MS from Pratt Institute also in Communication Design. He has worked as an Illustrator for major newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and he designed 24 animated episodes of "Troubles the Cat" for The Cartoon Network and CTN (Children's Television Network). He designed and animated short films for children which aired on HBO (two of the programs won an Emmy and a Peabody award), and designed openers for the French TF! Over the last 10 years he's created close to 20 children's books for editorial companies like Marshall Cavendish, Viking, GP Putnam, Zanner-Bloser, Houghton Mifflin, Warner, Golden Books, Zondervon, Chronicle, Blue Apple books and Skypony. Santiago also designed the first logo for Comedy Central and a film for the Poison Control
As a fine artist Santiago has individual and collective art shows in galleries in New York and Mexico. He received a grant from the Xeric Foundation to self publish his graphic novel "The Fifth Name". When did you first think about art as something you wanted to do? Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors? My father was a good artist and I tried to copy some of his cartoons when I was a kid, and couldn’t draw as well as he did; that frustrated me and I wanted to learn how to draw as well as he did, so I practiced a lot. Later on I became a photographer, but eventually I switched to art for good. My family was very supportive but they worried that I couldn’t make a living as an artist, that’s why I became a graphic designer and illustrator. I have a really good mentor who has supported me all my adult life, R. O. Blechman, who is a first rate cartoonist and animator. When I lost my father I took him as a father
