Best friends and former Sanrio product development designers Kazuko Shinoka and Sachiho Hino are the perfect balance of spicy and sweet. They are the creative design team behind Spicy Brown, a company which produces Japanese-inspired apparel, accessories and all things kawaii, founded by Scott and Laura Brown of Glendale, California.
They are the inspiration for Spicy Brown's licensed characters Kandi and Sandi, drawn by Sachiho to represent their totally divergent styles.
"Kandi" and "Sandi" were the nicknames given to them by their boss when they worked at Sanrio. Kandi is Kazuko, and her character wears a lot of bright bold colors and has bright colored hair. Sandi, on the other hand, wears mostly dark earthy neutrals and woodsy colors inspired by nature, and represents Sachiho in real life. In person, they are very much like their characters. Although when I met them, Kazuko was wearing dark grays and blacks (because of the season, she explains to me), and Sachiho told me she wants to start wearing brighter colors (because she says brighter colors make you look younger).
They are opposites in other ways as well. Kazuko loves doing graphic design layouts and composition, while Sachiho hates layout and would rather be drawing product and characters. Kazuko is also more outgoing while Sachiho is more conservative and a bit on the shy side. But different though they may be, they are the perfect complements to each other and work well as a team, ever since they both worked together in the product development department at Sanrio.
In light of the huge Hello Kitty 35th birthday celebration at Royal T gallery in Culver City, I thought it would be nice to get to know two of Sanrio's former designers who now create their own designs for Spicy Brown.
Sachiho Hino, born and raised in Saitama, a suburb north of Tokyo, first came to L.A. back in 1998, when she and her husband, who is Libyan-American, moved here for his job at an architecture firm. In 2000, she started working at Sanrio, where her previous experience as an illustrator in Japan for books, magazines and toy companies like Sega Enterprises, (which had a baby and preschool division), Tomy and Bandai, really helped her design Hello Kitty souvenirs for Sanrio's store products.
Sachiho's inspiration for her Kandi and Sandi characters are the bunka ningyo dolls of the Tai-sho era which have big eyes and small mouths, and Blythe dolls, which are very nostalgic and retro, but somehow the characters are very relevant to today. Her character Yesterdeer also is inspired by antiques and retro style.
Besides Kandi and Sandi and Yesterdeer, she also created Spicy Brown's signature line of sweet kokeshi characters, one example of which was featured in the just passed Kokeshi exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum. Laura Brown loves kokeshi dolls, and asked Sachiho to design the characters for Spicy Brown. The kokeshi tee shirt designs are extremely popular and are top sellers.
Kazuko Shinoka was born in Osaka, Japan, and came to the United States in 1996 to study graphic design at Cal State L.A., and after she obtained her degree got a job at Sanrio, after having done some editorial design for magazines such as Popular Science Japan while in school. She now works in the packaging department of Jakks Pacific. One of her signature characters for Spicy Brown is Tofu Robot, which was created for the Tofu Festival. She decided to make a Tofu robot, because the square shape is "simple and easy to make into other things." Sushi neko (sushi cat) was her first character, and came about because at first Spicy Brown created only characters related to food. Tamaneko (tama is a common name for a cat, and also means ball) is a girl with cat-like features, and the inspiration for her was her Siamese cat Sachi, which she wanted to immortalize in a cute character since she was very special to her. Protect Panda and Protect Polar Bear are other popular characters of hers, designed to promote awareness of endangered species.
These designers are so talented and do such amazing work, they were so inspiring to meet. Both designers plan on creating more fun characters, so stay tuned for the latest info!
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