My name is Derriyon “Tokyo” Winns. I’m a multidisciplinary artist, designer, and filmmaker born in Pensacola, Florida, and raised between Montgomery, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia.
My earliest memories of art start with sound. My grandmother playing Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life every morning on the way to school, and my mom blasting UGK, T.I., and André 3000 in the car. (A bit later in life I took a liking to Kid Cudi, Gnarles Barkley, Kanye, Radiohead, The Weeknd and Nirvana.) Those car rides and afternoons shaped how I understood rhythm, storytelling, and feeling. I remember watching 106 & Park as a child, face so close to the screen that my hair would stick to the TV, completely lost in the world of music videos, especially Outkast and Missy Elliott.
My love for film came soon after — sitting beside my grandfather watching Star Wars, or with my grandmother as she watched Lifetime movies. Going to my mom’s was a bit different. We didn’t have much and usually lived in low income areas, so we’d rent VHS tapes from Blockbuster and Albertsons… most of which we probably never returned (I still have them to this day). I was obsessed with Spy Kids, Slappy and the Stinkers, Ridley Scott’s Alien, Akira, and anything starring Denzel Washington. Sci-Fi, Drama, Action and Mystery. Even then, I noticed how lighting and sound shaped a film’s emotion, how a scene could feel warm, cold, dangerous, or alive, just through light and sound alone.
My grandfather was a master welder, often out of town for work, but when he was home, he’d be in the garage working on his white Corvette. I was obsessed with it. I’d try to earn model cars from Michaels by getting good grades on my tests and report cards, just so I could take them apart and put them back together… the same way I did with my bike, my skates, my scooter, and just about anything I could get my hands on. This curiosity, the urge to understand how things worked and how they were made beautiful, became the foundation of my interest in design and borderline obsession with creativity.
My creative journey began the summer before my freshman year at Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School, where I went to study architecture and started a creative collective that produced music, designed clothing, and created photo, video, and narrative film projects — blending songwriting and production, fashion and product design, and cinematic visual direction. That experience grounded my love for collaboration and multidisciplinary creation.
Later, I studied Film at Clark Atlanta University before transferring to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Atlanta, where I studied Industrial Design and Film Production. There, I deepened my approach to fashion and product design, film directing, cinematography, lighting, and fashion photography, with the intention of developing a signature aesthetic and philosophy that bridges form, sound, and image.
Currently, I’m entering the active phase of my creative journey — a stage where I’m finally using my voice to tell visual stories, write songs, and design products. My intention is to not only tell my story, but also help others tell theirs. For a long time, I felt like I was holding myself back, afraid that what I plan to create having an inability to connect to people. But now, I’m realizing that my desire to express myself outweighs my fear. Every morning when I write my goals and my why’s I always ask myself: what good is desire without action?
