Eric Guillon
French character designer
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Eric Guillon is a French character designer, mainly responsible for creating the characters from Despicable Me, an animated franchise produced from Illumination Entertainment, including the studio's iconic mascots, The Minions.[1][2]
Director
Illumination (2010-present)
Eric Guillon | |
|---|---|
| Occupations | Character Designer Director |
| Years active | 1994-present |
| Employer(s) | Fantôme Animation (1994-99) Illumination (2010-present) |
| Known for | Despicable Me The Secret Life of Pets Sing Not Alone |
Besides designing the characters for the studio's own films, including some from The Secret Life of Pets and Sing franchises, he also co-directed Despicable Me 3 (2017)[3][4] and is set to direct his first original film Not Alone (2027).[5]
Career
Fantôme Animation
Guillon started out studying application arts and worked in advertising for five years. He began working as a designer with Fantôme Animation for six years, on the series Insektors as well as the other projects.[6]
Passion Paris
Guillon worked on a few commercials with Pierre Coffin around at Passion Pictures in Paris.[7]
Illumination
In 2011, Guillon was nominated with Yarrow Cheney for Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production for his first film Despicable Me (2010) at the 38th Annie Awards, but was lost to How to Train Your Dragon (2010) by Pierre-Olivier Vincent.[8] In 2013, Guillon was nominated with Cherey and Colin Stimpson for Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in a Feature Production at the 40th Annie Awards on the film The Lorax (2012), but was lost to ParaNorman (2012) by Heidi Smith.[9] In 2014, Guillon was nominated for two awards on Despicable Me 2 (2013) at the 41st Annie Awards, but lost to Frozen (2013) and The Croods (2013).[10] In 2016, Guillon was nominated for two awards at the 43rd Annie Awards on Minions (2015), but both lost to Pixar's Inside Out (2015).[11][12] He later got nominated for Character Design in a Feature Production on The Secret Life of Pets (2016) at the 44th Annie Awards[13][14] and Despicable Me 3 (2017) at the 45th Annie Awards,[15][16] but lost to Zootopia (2016) by Cory Loftis and Coco (2017) by Daniel Arriaga, Daniela Strijleva, Greg Dykstra, Alonso Martinez and Zaruhi Galstyan.
On June 2026, it was announced that Guillon will direct his first original film from Illumination called Not Alone (2027),[5] following his co-direction from Despicable Me 3 (2017).[3][4]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Film | Role | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Despicable Me[17] | Art Director/Character Designer | Illumination Entertainment |
| 2012 | The Lorax[18] | ||
| 2013 | Despicable Me 2[19] | Production Designer/Character Designer | |
| 2015 | Minions[20] | ||
| 2016 | The Secret Life of Pets[21] | ||
| Sing[22] | |||
| 2017 | Despicable Me 3[4][3] | Co-Director/Character Designer | |
| 2018 | The Grinch[23] | Character Designer | |
| 2019 | The Secret Life of Pets 2[24] | ||
| 2021 | Sing 2[25] | ||
| 2022 | Minions: The Rise of Gru[26] | ||
| 2024 | Despicable Me 4[27] | ||
| 2027 | Not Alone[5] | Director |
Television
| Year | Show | Role | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994–1995 | Insektors[6] | Designer/Layout Management | Fantôme Animation |