Han Lim Lee
| Han L. Lee | |
|---|---|
|
Han L. Lee | |
| Born |
July 17, 1978 Seoul, Korea |
| Residence | Los Angeles,California |
| Nationality | Korean-American |
| Occupation | Illustrator |
| Known for | Bobby Jack and The Public Zoo |
| Website | hlldesign.com |
Han Lim Lee (born July 17, 1978) is a Korean-American illustrator. The fashion character brands he has created include Bobby Jack, The Public Zoo, Zoodorable, Pink Fizz, & Luckie London.[1]
Biography
Early life
Han Lim Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea. He immigrated to the United States of America with his family in 1980. He attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in 1995. He currently resides in Southern California.
Career
Han started his creative career as a freelance artist by selling random prints of his artwork to various buyers. When his financial situation was becoming weary, Han applied as a freelancer for J&F Design, a clothing company. At the time of his employment, his company was just selling random prints of art on plain T-shirts. Han felt the idea of selling random prints could only go so far, and that the artwork would need to be developed into a lifestyle brand in order to create and maintain a following. In 2001, he started developing a character-based brand around a monkey called Bobby Jack.[2] The name, Bobby Jack, originated from Han's two partners, Bob and Jack. From what started out as just printed T-shirts, Bobby Jack became a complete lifestyle brand in multiple categories such as accessories, toys, bed/bath decor, and many others. By 2006 Bobby Jack clothing became the most popular clothing among children.[3] The Bobby Jack Brand resulted in escalated sales for the proceeding years since its creation. At one point, the peak was high as $350 million in sales, outdoing every other character licensed brand in 2007. At the end of 2010, Han parted ways with the company and sold Bobby Jack to his previous partners to establish his own company.
After his departure in 2010, Han started up his own brand design firm, HLL Design. His creative team from the previous company also joined his venture, and are currently still working together. HLL Design has produced lifestyle character brands such as The Public Zoo, Zoodorable, Pink Fizz, and Luckie London. The Public Zoo started out as a women's clothing brand in various boutique shops globally that expanded into a full-fledged lifestyle brand, becoming available in larger retail chains such as Target and Macy's. The Public Zoo grew into a wide range of categories such as plush dolls, electronics, snowboards, stationary, room decor, and watches.[4] In addition, the Pink Fizz brand has come out with a cosmetics line for Toys R Us. More recently, HLL Design has also developed toy concepts inspired by Han's original character creations.