Unklbrand

Biography[edit]

UNKL (then UNKL Brand) was started in 2000 by Portland, Oregon-based graphic designers, Jason Bacon and Derek Welch. The toy company emerged out of the pair's urge to have a non-client based creative process. As the owners of the successful Portland design studio, big-giant, Bacon and Welch wanted an outlet for their overflowing creativity. Experimenting in many mediums, the vinyl toy world was one that continually intrigued them. Early incarnations of the TinPo character were swapped back and forth between the two, each experimenting with adding new heads to the same body shape. These collaborative drawings would eventually come to life in vinyl as the first series of TinPo characters -- and would solidify the UNKL name to signify the collaborative relationship between Bacon and Welch. While TinPo was, on paper (no pun intended), the first UNKL character, the first character to find itself molded into a vinyl form was HazMaPo. HazMaPo emerged out of a desire to blend two juxtaposed ideas into one form -- in this case, the "cute" body with a "creepy" gas mask on it's small body. Bacon and Welch received an overwhelming response for HazMaPo. Following the HazMaPo release, UNKL released TinPo Series 1, the first SUGs, then JunPo and, finally, UniPo. SUG's dog-like figure, Ulligus, joined the UNKL family at San Diego Comic Con 2007.