Ryan Lesser is an American video game and board game designer, musician and graphic artist living in Providence, Rhode Island. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, he is best known for his design and art direction on influential video games Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Rock Band and The Beatles: Rock Band.
Lesser is an art director at video game developer CD Projekt Red in their American studio The Molasses Flood, faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and Founder of Wild Power Games. From 1999–2018, Lesser served as creative lead and art director at Harmonix. He was a member of the heavy metal band Megasus. In the early- to mid-1990s, Lesser worked with Shepard Fairey on the street art phenomena "Andre the Giant has a Posse" and "Obey," and edited Helen Stickler's video documentary André the Giant Has a Posse and co-created Attention Deficit Disorder with Shepard Fairey.Attention Deficit Disorder
In 2014, Lesser led a successful Kickstarter campaign for the Harmonix video game Amplitude to ship on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.
Games Name Year Credited with PublisherHarmonix Guitar Hero 2005 Art director, art lead, designer Red Octane Guitar Hero II 2006 Art director, designer Red Octane Rock Band 2007 Art director, art lead, designer Electronic Arts Rock Band 2 2008 Art director, designer MTV Games The Beatles: Rock Band 2009 Art director MTV Games Amplitude 2015 Creative lead Harmonix Rock Band 4 2016 Creative lead Harmonix
Patents Lesser is listed as an inventor on the following patents: Date of patent Patent number Title 04/23/09 8690670 Systems and methods for simulating a rock band experience 03/19/09 20090075711 Systems and methods for providing a vocal experience for a player of a rhythm action game 08/06/02 6429863 Method and apparatus for displaying musical data in a three dimensional environment 01/01/13 D673582 Display screen or portion thereof with boombox icon
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