SYWA Studio is an experiential design, production, and branding company based in Los Angeles, California, specializing in theme parks, attractions, shows, branded experiences, cultural attractions, and museum exhibits.
Cynthia Ignacio
With over twenty-five years of experience in the entertainment design industry, Cynthia Ignacio began her career in 1991 with Walt Disney Feature Animation, where she had the honor of working on several iconic movies such as The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Hunchback of Notre Dame, among many others.
Her career began as a background/environment designer, and has since often taken supervisory or art director roles. As an extension of her various duties, she has also storyboarded, costume-designed, and drawn/color-styled orthographic views of sets and props. Her skillset ranges across theme park projects, feature and television animation, live action, and theatre.
She is proud to have worked with animation luminaries Glen Murakami and Genndy Tartakovsky, rock musician Taylor Hawkins, and live action director Justin Lin. Her extensive resume includes the acclaimed animated series Teen Titans, and the blockbuster The Simpsons feature film.
Her substantial list of clients, brands, and projects: Walt Disney Imagineering, Universal Studios, Sony Studios, Paramount Theme Parks, Warner Bros, Blizzard, Dreamworks, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Landmark Entertainment Group, Marvel, BRC Imagination Arts, HMS Queen Mary, and many others.
She has worked on several THEA award-winning projects, including California Adventure's Disney Animation attraction, and the Universal Studios Orlando Men in Black theme park ride. Cynthia recently art directed theme park projects built in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, for which she oversaw retail spaces, restaurants, area development, building facades, attraction show sets, ride vehicles, and pre-shows.
Cynthia has a BA in Illustration from the Pratt Institute of Art.
Michael Gordon, PE, PMP
Michael is a licensed professional Engineer and Architect who has been developing theme park attractions, architectural landmarks, and monumental sculptures for twenty four years. Michael has combined his architectural and mechanical engineering experience to produce and enhance over 100 extraordinary projects, including: Star Tours- The Adventures Continue, the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Men in Black, Pirates of the Caribbean, EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and the Twister ride at Universal Studios. He has also helped to advance Loma Linda’s proton therapy process by developing modern fabrication methods for the synchrotron’s radio frequency cavity and wire extraction septum. His on-site supervision and construction verification efforts have prevented costly fabrication errors and months of installation delays.
He holds degrees from Cal Poly Pomona and Penn State; as well as management certifications from Cal Tech and USC.
Kevin Mentzer
Kevin is a multi-disciplined designer adept at theme parks, waterparks, architectural themed lands and rides, theaters, restaurants, master planning, and film & commercial set design and art direction.
His credits include being Zone Art Director, Warner Plaza, Metropolis, and Park Entry Design, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi; Walking Dead for Universal Studios Hollywood; Busch Gardens’ Jungala play/animal interactive area; Happy Hollow Park Zoo, Wanda; Justice League: Battle for Metropolis for Sally; and Haunted Halloween park event for Chimelong. Kevin also served as Senior Designer at Warner Bros. for their MovieWorld theme parks, designing and managing concept design and art directing rides and elements ranging from theatres to food stands.
Kevin has a Master of Architecture from the University of Nebraska and a Bachelor of Science, Business Administration from San Jose State University.
Kevin “Kexx” Singleton
Emmy Award winning Artistic Designer/Director with a passion for animated film production and themed entertainment design. He has contributed to many successful animated films and television series and designed unique attractions for various theme parks around the globe. Kevin has strong artistic and management skills and has shown a remarkable level of versatility and skill in any area of production he undertakes, whether in team management or production design. Key strengths include strong film direction and story telling abilities, team management, art direction, environmental and architectural concept design, character design and storyboard.
Clients include: Walt Disney Pictures and Television, DreamWorks Animation, Warner Bros. Studios, Universal Pictures, Nickelodeon Animation and Walt Disney Imagineering.
Kevin is a graduate of the highly esteemed Animation program of the California Institute of the Arts.
Sywa Sung, Assoc. AIA, RAIC
CEO, Chief Creative Officer
With over 25 years of professional experience, Sywa was the Creative Director for 20th Century Fox World Malaysia and Dubai theme parks overseeing all Creative aspects of both projects on behalf of 20th Century Fox LBE and brand guardianship of the full range of the studio’s vast library of Intellectual Properties within the LBE portfolio. His career has encompassed the diverse worlds of theme parks, attractions, museum exhibits, cultural attractions, and branded experiences in projects around the world. He is multi-talented Creative Director, Art Director, Designer, Illustrator, Set Designer, Graphic Designer.
He has worked on projects for Walt Disney Imagineering including Shanghai Disneyland’s TRON Realm, Epcot’s Test Track Presented by Chevrolet, attractions for Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, Ferrari World, Universal Studios, Cedar Fair, SeaWorld, Herschend Family Entertainment, and Bally’s Casino Las Vegas. Sywa began his entertainment design career as a designer in a hand picked team at Sony Development for Moebius’ Airtight Garage for locations in San Francisco and Tokyo.
His branded experience projects have included Activision for E3, Walt Disney Features, LEGO, Fox, CBS, Xerox, M&M’s Mars, Frito-Lay, Coors, FedEx, Variety, BP, and Citibank.
Sywa is thrilled to be a screen credited Visual Development Artist for Pixar Animation Studios & Brad Bird’s Academy Award winning film, The Incredibles.
Sywa has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto.
He is a classically trained violinist, and was awarded a scholarship as a gifted child musician. He earned High Distinction and Distinction diplomas in university level Music Theory from McGill University while still in junior high school. In more recent years, Sywa is a professional level singer after taking seven years of formal Musical Theatre vocal training for his 3 octave vocal range. Sywa enjoys singing R&B, Soul, Jazz Standards, and Show Tunes for audiences where ever he can.
Our team of talented and experienced professional Associates consists of:
Who We Are
