Earlier this year I relaunched Tonky Designs, my art-meets-product design studio focused on creating fun, expressive objects for modern spaces.

The current site features wall graphics, soft goods, jewelry, and limited-edition pieces — all designed by me and produced in small runs.

Tonky started years ago as a side project rooted in curiosity. Coming out of grad school at NYU, I had a solid grasp of advanced fabrication vector cutting, 3D printing, art-quality print production and a shifting perspective on the gallery world. I began to see art not as a precious, untouchable practice but as a form of storytelling that could live in everyday life.

That realization was liberating. Tonky became a space to make things that were beautiful, affordable, and a little bit unserious.

In the process, I taught myself how to build a supply chain, manage production, launch products online, and work with retailers. Tonky laid the groundwork for everything that followed especially the success of my bike safety brand RydeSafe.

Today Tonky is a lean, expressive brand that lets me keep a hand in physical design and play with the relationship between art, commerce, and storytelling.

I mean, it wasn’t yacht money, but kinda felt like it was going somewhere. Y’know?

But it was taking too much time - left it all behind for a career in advertising and indy screenwriting / filmmaking. :-)