ILLUSTRATOR
An energetic, gregarious soul with wire rim glasses and a neat goatee, Jonathan Herbert provides an entertaining commentary as he leads the way through a maze of boxes, past a sleeping cat, and down a tightly coiled spiral staircase to his studio. "If it looks like we just moved in," he explains, "we did. And if it looks like we're horrendously busy, we are."
Herbert, a computer illustrator, specializes in 3D for print. Using technology from Silicon Graphics(R) he has transformed his business from a small regional operation into a major creative enterprise with corporate clients throughout the country. Over the last year he's expanded into computer animation, while his print business continues going strong. He recently completed his first television commercial--for Nytol(R)--and is about to start on a second, for Centrum Silver(R) vitamins. Earlier animation projects were done for Merrill Lynch and the Wall Street Journal. "You could say I have a triangular business," Herbert remarks, "we do prototype visualization, print illustration and animation, which, as you can imagine, keeps us frighteningly busy. I'm still recovering from a recent 125 hour marathon. Actually, it was a lot of fun. I was using a Silicon Graphics Indigo2(TM) Extreme system. In just one week, my assistant and I completed three 4,000 line, high resolution renderings, five 2,000 line renderings, and a 30 second animation. That was a good week's work!"