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Societal Changes
It has long been accepted that in order to maintain their relevance, greeting card designs, as well as the sentiments and humour that feature upon them, need to reflect ever evolving societal tastes and nuances. During this monumental period in all our lives, Pigment Productions’ senior designer Hannah Matthews undertook a research project into how our experiences and feelings during this pandemic have changed us, and then viewed these insights through a commercial greeting card lens, to help ensure the publisher’s latest launches are in tune with life as we know it. Are you a tea or a coffee fan? A cat or a dog lover? A gin or champagne drinker? A lover or a fighter? Sorted. And now for the decider‌are you an Essentialist or a Hedonist? The last question refers to the two main groups of UK consumers (with a healthy overlap), as identified in the multi-faceted research project undertaken by Pigment Productions, the insights of which are evident in the publisher’s latest launches. Hannah Matthews joined Pigment almost two years ago, bringing her experience in both trend forecasting
(having worked for the respected Trend Bible) as well as greeting card design (having been part of Hallmark’s Ideation team) to the Harrogate-based card business. “There are a lot of over-arching trend prediction companies out there, but having Hannah in our team, someone with such insights, acumen as well as a knowledge of creating relevant greeting cards, has proved invaluable, especially in a period of such seismic change,� commented Martin Powderly, creative director and co-owner of Pigment.
Left: Hannah Matthews with her beloved cat, William. Above: One of the top selling designs in the Hey Girl range as it is so appropriate to current circumstances.
As Hannah explained, while an individual rarely fits snugly into ‘a box of behaviours’ in which they reside forever, there are general patterns of behaviour, belief systems and tastes that emerge, not least over the last 10 months since the coronavirus became an unfortunate everyday reality. “With greeting cards ever more important in the way we communicate with each other we wanted to help make sure that the cards we published at Pigment reflected these changing routines, attitudes,
Meet The Essentialists And Hedonists Hannah proposes that the impact of the last year on our attitudes and behaviours has divided the population into two main groups The Essentialists and The Hedonists. “While these are not hard and fast camps, and a lot of us are a mixture of both, there are some commonalities which we find useful to bear in mind when designing our cards,� says Hannah. “The Essentialist is someone who is likely to have placed an importance on sustainability, so would probably look for cards that are easily recyclable. They would also be more into self-care, adopt a ‘less is more’ attitude to their clothing and grocery purchases, concerned with shop local and provenance,� explains Hannah. The Hedonist on the other hand is likely to “be looking for Far left: Which type of person are you? Above: Three Hedonists heading for a entertainment experiences, getting together with friends over a few ‘Zoom’ party? A Ribticklers design. cocktails (via Zoom right now!) and adopts an optimistic approach. Left: Self care is one of the attributes of an Essentialist, as reflected on this new More of everything is her name of the game!� says Hannah. Artisan Days design.
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PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE