In February 2020, Romano Marenghi’s world was turned upside down when he found out that his one-year-old son had a rare form of childhood lung cancer. His perspective on life changed significantly and he decided to focus on what makes him and his family happy.
During this time Romano’s son, Joey, began his rounds of chemotherapy, the family were financially struggling and relying on benefits to keep them afloat during the pandemic. Romano said: “We were on benefits, which wasn't great - it was just enough to kind of keep our heads above water. But I knew that this wasn’t going to last forever.” Before Joeys diagnosis, Romano worked on film and TV sets for the last 14 years and his wife Imogen was a teacher.
Romano said that Imogen is the reason for his decision to change his career, as she gave him the confidence and support to try a career that would make him happy. He said: “My wife Imogen is amazing - she encouraged me to pursue becoming self employed and focusing my energy into work that made me happy. I rebranded myself as MAAD Frog, which was abbreviated from Marenghi Art and Design, and I concentrated on commissioned comical character portraits, and various bespoke design jobs for the first year.”
