A very Hong Kong brand

Prudence Mak is a calm but high energy person. A designer, restauranteur and entrepreneur she points out that she is a home-grown Hong Kong brand. Calling herself the founder and creative director of Chocolate Rain, her paper products and ideas have been exhibited in Hong Kong, London, New York, Shanghai and in Japan. In business now for more than 16 years, Mak is a one woman band who started with handmade paper products. From an ordinary background in the city, she was a scholarship student who eventually did her Masters at the St. Matins School of Art in London.

She is unabashed and indeed flaunts her very ordinary background and her extraordinary childhood where she was given recycled toys collected by her grandfather as well as other objects that could be turned into toys. Her work now goes beyond paper toys and mobiles although half are still hand-made out of recycled materials. She has done some animation work in Chinese for the British Museum and has lately been licensing her design and characters to crossover brands by making apps and games for the likes of Samsung.

Prudence Mak works extensively with the city’s Wide Ocean printing as she continues to design, print and fabricate because she says the printer is “first of all high quality and fast.” Mak’s work is very much motivated by her own childhood in Hong Kong. “A childhood can be an inspiration. Even when you grow up you can be as happy as a child. Creative and happy, a child treasures simple things,” she says. “Simple hand made toys, objects, sights and events bring joy to a child and not luxury.”