4 minute read
Focus On… Earlybird Designs
Eclectic dreams
Dom and Heidi Early run a publishing and retail card business. Here, Dom tells us more about Earlybird Designs’ future plans
Tell us a little about Earlybird, its history and where it is now.
Earlybird is husband and wife team Dom and Heidi Early. I (Dom) graduated from Central St Martins Art College in the late 90s. While freelance illustrating, I designed a selection of cards to sell at Spitalfields Market in London. What was supposed to be a sideline to generate some extra cash became a successful small business. Heidi, who was a journalist at the time, soon started working with me and we have ended up creating a thriving publishing and retail business together. We now supply a large selection of UK stockists, multiples and export. And how has the company changed in that time?
Apart from the obvious things like lots more designs, we have got a far better grasp on what it takes to produce a successful card range. In the beginning we only really designed what we liked! We soon learned that a balance of our style, along with consumer demands and trends, is vital.
We concentrated on our own retail shop for many years but the upward trajectory for the company as a whole really started when we began exhibiting at the trade shows.
We have also become very aware of our carbon footprint. Sustainability is now an essential consideration in everything we do, and Heidi has recently completed a course on the subject with the view to achieving a business sustainability accreditation.
Major achievements recently would be our retail shop winning two RETAs. Heidi and Hannah (Earlybird’s superstar assistant) deserve a lot of credit for that as they have worked so hard in the past few years on our London-based shop in very difficult trading times. Tell us more about the shop.
The shop is integral to the success of the publishing. It’s a perfect sounding board. We design a range and it will be put into the shop for a month before a trade show. We then select the bestsellers for the trade catalogue, which really helps when chatting to customers at the shows as we have confidence in the sales. We can also spot trends in the market and listen to any gaps our retail customers suggest need filling. And I think it really helps that we can see the whole industry from both sides. Tell us about your artists.
We work currently with seven artists who all have their own ranges with Earlybird. I wish I had space to speak about all seven!
Our most recent collaborations are with Emma Jayne Designs - the artist whose kitsch, fun animal illustrations are behind the incredibly popular Buddy and Betty designs. It has been one of our bestselling ranges in the past 12 months so we’re going to extend it in the near future.
Linsey Kelly is a fabric artist and the talent behind our beautiful nature range called Honey. We had a gap in our portfolio for a new ‘Art’ range and as soon as we spotted her work we knew it was the perfect fit for us. Tell us about your new ranges?
We are launching Bonbi Forest for 2023, it is in collaboration with artist Lee Foster-Wilson (in conjunction with Jehane Ltd).
Inspired by nature and the stunning colours of the natural world, Lee has produced a range for us that is delightfully contemporary, illustrative and beautifully painted. Covering birthday and occasions, with a spot UV and emboss finish.
Also we have added 30 new designs to our bestselling neon Super Fabs, which span ages, relations and occasions. They are eye-popping, funny and also embossed and spot UV finished. We know these will be popular as the Super Fab range has been the fastestselling range we have ever produced. What is special about Earlybird’s designs?
I think the fact we have quite an eclectic design-led offering really helps our customers - they can select a number of different looks by ordering from us. Do you have any eco-friendly credentials you would like to mention?
Our printers Hartgraph are now carbon balanced. So all our print runs are now offset.
Also all of our cards are designed and printed in the UK on FSC accredited board (recycled board, where possible) and we use vegetable-based inks.
We offer the cards plastic free (nesting) or with a compostable cello. Our thank you packs are also now free from plastic and come presented in a recycled craft fleck hanging box.
