Modern Sonic Design Influencer Okano Profiled

When you think of modern Sonic and his inception from the development of Sonic Adventure, you likely think of Yuji Uekawa, whose character designs of 2D helped define Sonic for his entire 3D tenure.

But history tells a story far more complex. Uekawa’s designs draw inspiration from another artist, with origins from a very classic Sonic focused title. That title is Sonic Jam, and the artist who set all the gears in motion then was Satoshi Okano, who is profiled in a new feature from Fanbyte.

In the feature, Okano explains the influences and inspirations from his art, first seen as part of the 1996 compilation:

Hoshino gave Okano this exact opportunity — he was tapped for promotional artwork for Sonic Jam [….] “I thought ‘I’ll never have a chance like this again! How lucky!’” Okano recalls. But his contributions didn’t end there: “The “Sonic Jam” title was my idea,” recalls Okano, “My SEGA coworkers would ask me ‘what does that mean?’ I would politely turn and explain it to them like this: ‘The jam is like the jam in a jazz session. It means it’s packed with cool stuff.’”

“I wanted to give Sonic a timeless, cutting-edge image,” Okano says, though his approach was certainly inspired by a particular era of pop culture. “I was raised on and inspired by American Sci-Fi movies, New York hip-hop, sneaker and street culture, and UK industrial rock music,” he tells me. “My inspirations were George Lucas and Steven Spielburg movies, Nike basketball shoes, the Adidas tracksuits RUN DMC wore in their 1988 photoshoots, Flavor Flav’s clock and glasses, De la Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers lyrics, Bjork, Underworld, and other music, music videos, and artwork like that.”

The article explains that Okano’s artwork inspired Yuji Naka to hold a contest for the design of Sonic’s artwork for what would become Sonic Adventure–and, effectively, modern Sonic itself. Okano would place second in the contest; Uekawa first. Okano holds no hard feelings over it; in fact, he says he helped Uekawa with the design:

Additionally, Okano may have had a hand in helping Uekawa develop and refine the design he submitted. “Before ‘new Sonic,’ I had drawn an illustration of Sonic,” he tells me, “then Yuji Uekawa finished it. Because of that, the initial ‘new Sonic’ illustrations were a two-person effort. This is something very few SEGA employees know about.”

You can read more about Okano’s contributions to modern Sonic at the above Fanbyte link.