Traci Paige Johnson is an animator, television producer, and co-creator of the long-running Nickelodeon children's television program Blue's Clues. While a student at Northwestern University, where she earned a degree in radio, television, and film, Johnson began developing her "unique signature style of cutout animation using construction paper and everyday objects and textures". She was a freelance animator in the early 1990s when cable television network Nickelodeon wanted to create a new television show for preschoolers. She was already well known as a designer, animator, writer, producer, and director for children's television. In 1994, Johnson, along with producer Angela Santomero and director Todd Kessler, which Nickelodeon executive Brown Johnson called a "green creative team", created the series Blue's Clues. According to writer Diane Tracy, Johnson, Santomero, and Kessler did not possess traditional backgrounds of most producers of children's programs, but "did possess an amazing combination of talents, backgrounds, and personal attributes". Also according to Tracy, Johnson would "change the look of preschool children's television". 

April 21st, 1969 in New York City (Age 54)