About · Orlando, Florida

Zach Gracia builds things that last.

Artist, designer and world builder. 15+ years in entertainment, more than a decade of it shaping licensed consumer products at The Walt Disney Company — and building independent ventures entirely on his own terms.

At home in Orlando with his partner Kelsey and their son Hudson. At Disney shaping product lines that reach millions. Through TAD and VNCE, creating work entirely on his own terms. The throughline in all of it is the same: make something worth making.

Sketch portrait of Zach Gracia on a pegged animation sheet
Click the sheet to playRough → tie-down → clean-up → tone

The origin

Zach didn't find art — art found him, the summer before his senior year of high school, at 3 a.m. with a sketchbook and no plan. What followed wasn't linear. Art school in San Francisco. Two jobs. Midnight classes. Sketchbooks filled in every spare hour. Rejections that taught him more than any acceptance could have. A Disneyland internship where he sketched guests on receipt paper between shifts, still convinced the dream was worth chasing.

It was. A chance meeting with his future leader turned into a studio tour — and two months later, an email that changed everything. More than a decade at Disney followed, where he learned to bring more than craft into the room. When he worked on the Coco merchandise line as a Mexican-American designer, he didn't just contribute artwork. He brought his grandmother's house, the songs, the history.

Things no brief could ask for.

Spec sheet

Now
Lead Product Designer, The Walt Disney Company
Categories
Consumer Electronics and Sporting Goods, across Disney and Pixar IP
Role
Category manager, art director and lead designer across Consumer Electronics and Sporting Goods; lead designer on Disney and Pixar toys and collectibles
Also
Emerging Tech & AI Ambassador for his team
Independent
TAD (The Art Department) · VNCE
Education
MS, Digital Marketing — Wake Forest University
BA, Visual Development for Animation, minor in Character Design — Academy of Art University, San Francisco
Previously
Managed Marvel programs at Disney
Based
Orlando, Florida

Recognition

Club 33 Walt Disney World keepsakes — Zach’s custom Coco artwork of Miguel and Héctor, the event card, a Mickey sketch signed by Don Williams, and a thank-you note from the Club 33 team
Club 33, Walt Disney World. Custom artwork commissioned for “Club 33, Behind the Ears: Imagineering with Zach Gracia” — Miguel and Héctor from Coco — kept alongside the Mickey sketch Disney artist Don Williams drew for Zach.

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