Bob Rafei

Bob Rafei
Bob Rafei
Born	Babak Rafei; 1969 (age 54–55)
Nationality	Iranian
Education	BFA, Illustration
Alma mater	Parson's School of Design '91
Occupations	Art director; character animator; concept artist;
Years active	1995–present
Employer	Naughty Dog (1995–2007)
Organization(s)	Big Red Button Entertainment, Inc. (CEO)

Babak "Bob" Rafei (Persian: بابک رافعی) is an Iranian video game art director, character animator and concept artist.^[1] He is the CEO of Big Red Button Entertainment,^[2] a video game development studio he co-founded with Jeff Lander in 2009.

Rafei is also an advisory board member for Game Developers Conference and Game Developers Choice Awards, as well as panel leader of Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences's achievement awards category on Art Direction and contributing writer of Animation Magazine and Animation World Network.

A graduate of Parson's School of Design, Rafei was an employee of Naughty Dog,^[3] joining them in early 1995 to work on Crash Bandicoot. Other notable works include Jak and Daxter, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.^[1]

Rafei previously worked on album cover arts for A&M Records, most notably Blues Traveler's Travelers and Thieves.

Games

As art director

Crash Bandicoot (1996)
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (1997)
Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998)
Crash Team Racing (1999)
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001)
Jak II (2003)
Jak 3 (2004)
Jak X: Combat Racing (2005)
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007)

As game director

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (2014)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e مصاحبه با هنرمندان: بابک رافعی [Interview with artists: Babak Rafei] (in Persian). cgart.ir. February 2012. Archived from the original on June 6, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2013.
^ "Former Naughty Dogs Found Big Red Button", Edge, 26 October 2023, ASIN B00BH4U102
^ McFerran, Damien (7 February 2014). "Reveals Sonic Team is involved and explains THOSE new character designs". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 22 December 2021. The studio's creative director Bob Rafei — who once worked at Uncharted developer Naughty Dog — is keen to stress that although Sonic Boom looks different, it's actually inspired by some of Sonic's most beloved titles