about

Sun Queen Designs is Charlene Kaye, a musician, illustrator, animator and graphic/communication designer born in Hawaii and based in New York City. Her seminal introduction to the design world was designing the Myspace and Xanga pages of her 8th grade friends. In high school, she began to play guitar, write songs and perform around town. Immersed in the music culture of Phoenix, Arizona, she began hand-drawing posters and T-shirts for her friends’ punk shows. Realizing she had a knack for it, she taught herself Photoshop and soon began creating a whole range of music-related work: album art, merch design, animated lyric videos and more.

In 2018 she studied graphic design at Parsons School of Design in New York, where she developed her love of branding, animation and editorial design. She designed the entirety of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s fall 2021 merch line, and currently animates and illustrates for advocacy nonprofit Global Citizen.

In addition to design, Charlene fronts her own band, KAYE, sings lead vocals for San Fermin, and plays Slash (“Gash”) in an all-girl Guns N’ Roses tribute band called Guns N' Hoses. She strives to create the more beautiful and just world in which we deserve to live.

“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” -Fannie Lou Hamer