Pokémon Company artist and designer killed in accident

The Pokémon Company’s creative design director Eric Medalle has died, aged 42.

After joining the studio in 2003, Medalle illustrated Pokémon’s trading figure game, and helped design every logo for the franchise’s trading card game since Nintendo brought production in-house.

He also created the logos for 3DS application Pokémon Dream Radar and anime TV show Pokémon the Series: XY.

Medalle died on Sunday in Seattle when driving with his daughter. Strong winds brought down a tree onto his car, killing him. His daughter suffered minor injuries.

Following the accident, a fundraising campaign has been launched to send Medalle’s two daughters to college. At the time of writing, it had already passed its $50,000 target by more than $10,000.

Thanks, Kotaku.