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On a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest, I paid a visit to Terry Marks, founder of tmarks Design in Seattle. I was there to discuss his work, but our conversations crossed many topics, from class and social issues to filmmaking, acting, and growing up. Marks doesn’t really avoid the subject of work, his interests are simply broad—and he has a lot to say.

FAT KID
Marks’ mom Jeanne was born in Japan, the daughter of two Korean parents forced to live and work in Japan during some very dark years. His dad Gene was an American-born “euro-mutt,” son of parents whose ancestry included Scots, Finns, Germans, and French. His father worked for the American Red Cross for nearly four decades, serving all branches of the U.S. military. Born Feb. 24, 1965, in the village of Moses Lake, Wash., on Larsen A.F.B., Marks was the youngest of three children. Before his first birthday, his family was posted to Hawaii where they remained until Terry turned four. He moved around—a lot.

As a child, Terry was fat. He weighed 86 pounds in the first grade and kids made fun of him. “Hey, you! Fat Chinese kid!” they’d shout at him. When asked what made him fat, Marks replies, “Food. I missed my dad who was away a lot for nearly two consecutive years in Vietnam and Korea. I ate for solace, I guess.” He took up football in the second grade, demonstrating an early penchant for finding solutions and sticking to a plan. He would play for 16 consecutive years.

After living in Sacramento, Calif., and Denver, the peripatetic Marks family were off to Yokota, Japan, in 1975, where young Terry enrolled in elementary school on the U.S. military base and learned a bit of Japanese along the way. The family remained there four years until the Red Cross sent them back to the States. Marks loved Japan and hated to go.

LUTHERAN FOOTBALL
After Japan, the family settled in Puyallup (pew-all-up), Wash. Marks entered Aylen Junior High (“Yes, it was as bad as it sounds”), then Puyallup High. His first big decision came with college: He chose a well-regarded school nearby, Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in Tacoma. “They had a football team that I knew I could play for,” Marks says. At PLU, he developed other interests besides football, however. He wrote a college newspaper column, “Slip ’o the Tongue.” His first article was about growing up fat and an outsider. The dubious—and envious—editor was swamped with letters from other students (OK, five, but any mail was rare), so she offered Marks a column. Marks learned early how to work an audience.

And enjoy one, too. He took up theater. His counselors advised him to major in communications or public relations. So he studied both, along with art. “But then I swapped out of a sculpture class into an upper level design course. My professor recommended me for an internship at a small local design firm called Stone McLaren, even though I didn’t know a thing about design. The owners, a husband and wife, offered me a full-time job before I graduated.”

So his career in design began as a happy accident—he sort of stumbled into the field. But design appealed to him: “It was a mother lode of jargon and terminology, the kind of stuff I like.” Aptitude tests at the time suggested a career on stage or street performing —design provided some creative relief and allowed him to perform for others.

Soon, he grew restless at Stone McClaren. He quit and went to work for the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce where he became Tacoma’s “King of Two-Color” while promoting the rich business climate of the town. After a few years, he abdicated his throne, setting his sights on that magical place of Space Needles, dahlias, coffee beans, and the smell of fish—Seattle.

TOP: WINEGLASS CELLARS “This is one of those great projects that seems like a minor dream come true. Not only did we solve things for them and do work we love, but we also got to redesign their logo. They’re great people who do great things with grapes.”

All captions narrated by Terry Marks.