Happy Easter from the licensing studio

Celebrate easter with the bear on the Forever Friends website. Make sure you check out the downloads!

Forever Friends is 25 years old this year!

To celebrate the Licensing Studio have created this beautiful vintage inspired range. Go check it out. Click to enlarge image.

Ampersand design Studio

Designers Carrie and Morgan used to work for Hallmark USA before setting up Ampersand they specialise in surface pattern, identity design and stationary. Check out the lovely products in their Etsy shop.

Our 2011 New Designers Winner is...

Congratulations to Lucinda Ireland our Hallmark / New Designers winner 2011. Lucinda has just graduated with a 1st class degree in visual communications from Nottingham Trent University, and will be joining us for a 4 week work placement in the studio very soon - Yey! Check out more of Lucinda's cool work at www.lucindaireland.co.uk

Job Title: Designer

Which means? I get to design the cards (i.e. the fun stuff). I work mainly on Forever Friends and Disney products so this often involves coming up with new trends and colour palettes before applying them to create innovative product solutions. (i.e. fab new stuff).

Team Name:
Gift and Licensing

Team Highlight: We get to see previews of upcoming films! For example when we were working on Toy Story 3 we were invited to Disney HQ in London to help us prepare. It was very exciting to see how the films are brought to life from the original storyboards. I can't wait to see the finished film! I also danced with Goofy while I was there, which was pretty random… but fun!

Strangest Hallmark moment so far: My strangest moment to date has to be when I was working on our 'New Home' range; I remember coming into work one morning to find a picture on my desk of a tortoise carrying a little parcel on its back. Next to it was a note saying, “we can't have this image so we need to re create our own… Rocky will be joining you for a photo shoot this afternoon!!” And yes, you've guessed it I spent my afternoon in the company of a real life tortoise that I had to try photograph! It took several takes, trying to lift him get him to walk in the right direction, create the right pose… I even had to tape a parcel onto his back! Rocky coped admirably though, finished the shoot completely unharmed and was later reunited with his girlfriend Michelle. Definitely my most random Hallmark day ever!

Your job in 3 words: FUN, CREATIVE, RANDOM

I Heart Hallmark: The thing I love most about Hallmark is working in such a creative environment with lots of like minded people. We’re continually encouraged to go on training courses and day trips to inspire us and generally develop our skills as much as we can and we have a lot of fun doing it. I also love the social aspect; when I first joined I felt like I was back at Uni, surrounded by people of a similar age to myself with the same kind of interests. I’ve managed to make some really great friends here.