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In Tribute to... David Hicks
Left: David Hicks in front of Penelope, the boat he and his wife Nicole lived on, moored on the Thames in London’s Wandsworth.
A Really Good Bloke David Hicks, founder of Really Good and Soul, who sadly died recently, was a true ‘one off’. He was great friend to many and inspiration to everyone who had the good fortune to meet him. David most definitely made the most of his life, but the cruelty of Motor Neurone Disease cut it too short. Here PG shares just a fraction of the tributes that have flooded in to pay respects to a true industry legend who was a really good bloke.
David will always be remembered for lots of reasons - his character, his wicked sense of humour, his vision, his entrepreneurial talents, his principles, his dress sense, his love of travel, photography, food, but most of all his love of people and interest in their lives. Having “stumbled by accident” into the greeting card industry in the late 1980s, David did things his way right from the off, something that was to continue right to the end. The Really Good Card Company, David’s first publishing venture, made its mark initially with postcards featuring the cartoons of Robert Duncan, published under the typically oblique range name of Not Particularly Orange. This led onto a vast array of over 250 greeting card ranges.
Above left: Always his own man! Above right: One of the many Not Particularly Orange designs by Robert Duncan that Really Good published. Above: David having his locks cut at Spring Fair when Happy Helalumps was in its heyday.
While not a designer himself, as a publisher they all had the David Hicks touch, adhering to his mantra of having to be different from what was on the market - no ‘me toos’ for him, that was for sure. While some of these were incredibly successful, most notably Happy Hefalumps, Edward Monkton and Bright Side - by David’s own admission “I have also published some awful failures, but they were always a bit different!” The expansion sideways for both Really Good and Soul (which launched as a sibling brand in 1997) from cards into gifts provided another avenue for David’s entrepreneurial nous to come into play - only he could have come up with the idea for a ‘Man Tin’ of which an astonishing three quarters of a million were sold over a five year period. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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