"More matter, with less art."

"In my mind's eye"

Already an established artist, Yoshitaka Amano entered the video gaming industry in the 1980's as a conceptual art illustrator for various titles. It would be in one of his first projects, the wildly successful Final Fantasy that would bring him his most acclaim. He would continue to work for Square in the years to follow as the chief character designer in the series. Although Nomura designed the characters for all subsequent Final Fantasies after the sixth installment (except for XI which was once again headed by Amano), Amano's artwork is still consider official and is featured alongside Nomura's. Amano was the image illustrator in FFVII.

Originally hired by Square to design battle graphics and as a graphic director in the early nineties, Tetsuya Nomura became the company's character designer taking over Yoshitaka Amano's post during the production of Final Fantasy VII. Nomura has since then received recognition for creating a wide range of loveable characters not only in the Final Fantasy series, but for other Square games including "Parasite Eve", "The Bouncer", and most recently the "Kingdom Hearts" franchise, in which he is also the director. Nomura was also the battle visual director in FFVII and along with producer Hironobu Sakaguchi wrote the story on with the game is based.

To view more of the official artwork from FFVII, click this link here.