Question: How is my favorite friend in Canada this morning, or is it Hong Kong now?

Answer: I relocated back to Hong Kong from Toronto for more than 3 months now, and I’m loving every minutes of it. The foods are great, the projects coming in are nice, and best of all, my runny nose allergies are getting much better!

Question: How did you get your start in design?

Answer: My start in design (especially tees) started when I submitted a tee design that won at Threadless 4 years ago. It was the Mona Prankster design that got me thinking seriously about doing design fulltime. After then, I have bands and other small clothing companies inquiring for my works. 

Question: What inspires your work?

Answer: Anything I see. Books, movies, tv shows, people, dreams, etc. I get inspired alot, but executing them is a different story, haha.

Question: How do you like working with Thriving Ink?

Answer: It’s been an awesome experience working with Thriving Ink. The whole design process and feedbacks went very smooth from start to finish. The main reason for such great work flow is because we all share the same passion for tees and designs. I look forward to working with TI again.

Question: What inspired you to do a line of animals for Thriving Ink?

Answer: I’ve always been intrigued by the uniqueness of animals and their behaviors. My designs are all based on this reason and I try to convey them in an abstract and stylish manner.

Question: People probably don’t know this but you are a skilled photographer, what inspires you to take photos?

Answers: Haha, I still have lots of learning in photography before I consider myself a skilled photographer. What inspires me to take photos is because photographs are like a contact sheet of your mind and experiences.

Question: What is your favorite:

Book? Any Goosebumps. 

Movie? Fight Club. 

Television show? The Office. 

Drink? Water. 

Website? <http://www.emptees.com/>

Food? Hong Kong style Baked Pork Chop Rice. 

Place? Toronto. 

Person in history? Koma Wong. 

Question: What do you do to prepare yourself to create a new design?

Answer: Most of the time, I need everyone is my house be asleep first before I can start my ideas, haha. I can get distracted by my family pretty easily.

Two of our awesome artists, Ken Marshall and Ryan Alamillo were interviewed by Threadless. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Threadless, they are a website that allows the community to choose designs from a huge pool of artists and the chosen ones get printed. Pretty cool. Ken Marshall has had his designs printed 3 times and Ryan Alamillo, 1 time! You can read their interviews here… Ken’s Interview and Ryan’s Interview.

Ken even gives Thriving Ink a shout out!

Our buddy Ken Marshall

Our buddy Ryan Alamillo! 

Artist Ken Marshall is making a name for himself!

We recently had artist Ken Marshall out here for our release party with his gorgeous wife, Krystin. We had a blast hanging with them. He was able to catch us up on all of his successes that he is experiencing.

Some of them are pretty sweet!This is the order of HIS preferences, besides working with Thriving Ink, which of course, is his favorite J In his zany words…”Oh and just a little update… I just found out I’ll have some designs made for the band “Panic at the Disco” and some potentially for Death Cab for Cutie. Also, I am working with Akademiks for loads of designs for the distant future…and lots of other potential stuff/art/awesomeness going on :)… i got to update my little website… “

Very nice, Ken! If you haven’t picked up one of his shirts on our site, be sure and get yourself one! By the way, his wife Krystin designs her own jewelry on Etsy. Amazing stuff. Visit her site at http://www.knky etsy.com.