Cornelius “Hank” Washington is an Art director, designer, and illustrator born and raised in the muddy backwoods of Mississippi. Hank grew up in a small town where creativity wasn’t considered a sustainable lifestyle. The morals of the town then were centered around either being a top tier athlete or working in a job that solely focused on high salaries, which both weren’t considered bad things but the concept of having no ceiling seems like a fairy tale. Being a former athlete, the idea of playing on the next level came to halt at the end of high school. 

Inspired by his older brother, Hank was introduced to the idea of creativity through watching his older brother collect music, comics, games, and illustrating doodles in a number of sketch books. Over time, Hank developed skills that sparked his interest in design and illustration. After studying design at Mississippi State University, he explored independent projects while working alongside a social media start up. These projects were a variety of different demands that included branding design, campaign art direction, motion, illustration and more. The clients ranged from out-of-the-garage ideas to brands like Dick’s Sporting Goods. Soon, Hank ventured out to create Hank Designs Studio, a creative studio aimed to help small teams with branding and art direction, in 2016 and worked with clients such as Netflix, Instagram, Snapchat, Fiverr and more.