ABOUT MEGUMI
​PAST
Megumi was born and raised in a little town in Shizuoka, Japan. She started showing interest and skill in arts & crafts at a young age. She was a strong swimmer, but her passion was in making things, music, and dance. Through school, she won several regional & in-school art awards as a child, but missed out on some because she was a detail-oriented, slow-paced worker... At the age of 12, she decided she really wanted to study abroad some day. Her family was not well-off; her mother a housewife and her father a "salary-man", who had a suit-&-a-tie corporate job who had to feed the family of 5.
At age 18 after finishing high school, she moved to New York City, where she studied dance at Broadway Dance Center for a while, moved to Seattle (I had a tendency to want to follow the music I liked) to study art at a college, then decided to go for a degree in graphic design back in NYC. ​After 3 years in Graphic Design major at Fashion Institute of Technology (The State University of New York), she left F.I.T. with an Associate Degree. Megumi's first job was at a streetwear brand Triple 5 Soul as a womenswear graphic designer, which was the beginning of her career in the fashion industry.
​Over the course of about 15 years, she has worked as a full-time and freelance graphic designer for many fashion brands such as Zoo York, Burton Snowboards, Nike ACG, Victoria's Secret, Calvin Klein Jeans, DKNY Jeans, Adidas Japan, Aèropostale, Rip Curl, etc. She won Kashiwa Sato award for Uniqlo GrandPrix T-shirt design contest. See these works here.
INFLUENCES
Megumi grew up with many children's illustrated books (monthly subscription!), and a father who was a big fan of the Beatles, and perhaps that influenced what type of art she leans towards. Two of her favorite children's book writers are Mitsumasa Anno and Taro Gomi, and the animation for Yellow Submarine illustrated by Heinz Edelmann had left a very strong impression on her after watching it only once as a child. After moving to New York, and especially studying art at F.I.T., she was exposed to many different styles of art, among them she was especially drawn to Surrealism, Art Nouveau, Bauhaus, psychedelic poster arts, and African mask designs. A little later, she discovers Pushpin Graphics, and Hipgnosis.
PRESENT
In 2009, Megumi moved to Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. After briefly working at Mimosa Clothing, she had 2 children. It definitely was a full-time job for her to be a mother for a while. Now as a single mother, she is working a part-time job and running her small business KIMONO KOMONO so she can pay for art making!
