Pratt Faculty Member Creates Logo for Hit Books, Movie Series

April 17, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

NEW YORK — Pratt faculty member Tim O’Brien is an illustrator and portrait painter whose intricately detailed and imaginative illustrations have most recently been translated to the big screen courtesy of the box-office smash, The Hunger Games.

O’Brien, an adjunct professor in Pratt Institute’s Undergraduate Department of Communications Design, illustrated The Hunger Games’ three covers for book publisher Scholastic, including The Hunger Games logo.

Film distributor Lionsgate has turned the best-selling series into a film franchise, using the logo as the basis of the movie poster and for the pin that is on view in the first installment of the series. The film recently set records for having the strongest opening weekend total for a spring release in film history at $155 million and has since exceeded the $300 million mark at the box office.

The story, which was originated by author Suzanne Collins, follows a 16-year-old living in a post-apocalyptic world as she is forced to compete in a nationally televised battle in which only one person can survive.

“It is incredible to watch the illustration I created for The Hunger Games used all over the world and to see it most recently on every cab, bus stop and billboard in New York City,” said O’Brien. “Seeing the image everywhere is a real ‘pinch me’ moment for me. Illustration is everywhere and brands much of what we see and understand visually, and this is just one example of its power,” he added.

O’Brien has taught at Pratt since 2007 and lives in Prospect Park South. He has had work published extensively in periodicals including Time magazine, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Newsweek and more. He has more than a dozen paintings in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and has also designed several stamps for the U.S. Postal Service.