Early life and education
Jessup was born in Corvallis, Oregon, and raised in California. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design from Oregon State University in 1976 and a Master of Fine Arts in design from Stanford University in 1978, establishing a strong foundation in visual communication before entering the film industry.1
Career
Early career: Korty Films and Lucasfilm
After graduating from Stanford, Jessup joined Korty Films, where he designed animated short films for Sesame Street, among them The Adventures of Thelma Thumb. He went on to serve as art director on director John Korty's animated feature Twice Upon a Time (1983), a rotoscope-hybrid fantasy produced by George Lucas. He subsequently joined Lucasfilm in a live-action art department capacity before transitioning to ILM.1
Industrial Light and Magic (1987-1994)
Jessup joined Industrial Light and Magic as a visual effects art director in 1987, a role he held until 1994. From 1991 to 1994 he also served as ILM's art department creative director.1
His notable ILM credits include:3
- Innerspace (1987): won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (60th Academy Awards), shared with Bill George, Dennis Muren, and Kenneth F. Smith.1
- Ghostbusters II (1989): Visual Effects Art Director; see below.2
- The Hunt for Red October (1990, with Steve Beck)
- Hook (1991): nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (64th Academy Awards), shared with Eric Brevig, Michael Lantieri, and Mark Sullivan; the award went to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.1
- Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
- Fire in the Sky (1993)
Earlier in his Lucasfilm/ILM career, Jessup also worked on The Ewok Adventure (1984), a Lucasfilm television movie, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in 1985.1
Walt Disney Pictures: James and the Giant Peach (1996)
Before joining Pixar, Jessup served as production designer on Henry Selick's stop-motion/live-action hybrid James and the Giant Peach (1996) for Walt Disney Pictures, one of the most technically complex animated productions of its era.3
Pixar Animation Studios (1996-2025)
Jessup joined Pixar in 1996, initially as production designer on Monsters, Inc., which was released in 2001.4 Over nearly three decades he was the production designer for some of the studio's most acclaimed films:
- Monsters, Inc. (2001, with Bob Pauley)
- Ratatouille (2007): won the Annie Award for Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production.1
- Cars 2 (2011)
- Presto (2008, short film)
- The Good Dinosaur (2015)
- Coco (2017): won the Annie Award for Best Production Design and the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for an Animated Film.1 The film's visual development required two research trips to Mexico (2011 and 2012), during which Jessup extensively photographed and studied Día de Muertos celebrations, local architecture, and cemeteries, directly shaping the film's marigold-and-magenta color palette and the vertical, fantastical design of the Land of the Dead.4
- Elio (2025): his final film at Pixar before retirement after a 28-year tenure.1
Jessup has described his design philosophy as one of subordination to story: "everything we do in the art department...is in support of the story and in support of the characters."4
Ghostbusters II
Jessup served as Visual Effects Art Director on Ghostbusters II (1989) at ILM, working under the film's visual effects production apparatus. His role involved supervising the visual design and conceptual art for the film's ILM-produced effects sequences, which included the Mood Slime river beneath New York City, the painting of Vigo the Carpathian, and the finale in which the Ghostbusters animate the Statue of Liberty using slime and Ruggeri's "Livin' on the Edge of the Night." The credit is confirmed in the film's ILM unit credits alongside director of effects photography Mark Vargo and visual effects producer Janet Mohler.2
Personal life
Jessup is married to Ann Jessup and has three children. The family lives in Marin County, California.1
In addition to his film career, Jessup has written and illustrated three children's books: What's Alice Up To? (Viking Children's Books, 1997), Grandma Summer (Viking Children's Books, 2000), and Welcome to Monstropolis (Disney/Egmont, 2001), the last of which is a tie-in to Monsters, Inc.1
References
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"Harley Jessup," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Jessup
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Spook Central, "Ghostbusters II Screen Credits," https://www.spookcentral.tk/sclib/ghostbusters-ii-screen-credits. ILM unit: "Director Of Effects Photography | Mark Vargo - Visual Effects Producer | Janet Mohler - Visual Effects Art Director | Harley Jessup."
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IMDb, "Harley Jessup" (nm0422263), https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0422263/
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Jérémie Noyer (November 5, 2017). "Pixar Production Designer Harley Jessup 'remembers' Coco," Animated Views. https://animatedviews.com/2017/pixar-production-designer-harley-jessup-remembers-coco/
