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Deep dive...Lucia Heffernan
A King Charles spaniel wearing a crown, fluffy yellow chicks striking yoga poses, an owl contemplating a glass of fine red wine and a rabbit enjoying a sumptuous breakfast in bed are just a taster of the humorous fantastical creations by artist Lucia Heffernan which are debuting on a greeting card collection from Pigment. PG caught up with Martin Powderly, Pigment’s creative director to find out more about the publisher’s latest artistic menagerie.
“I had been aware of Lucia Heffernan’s work for some time as it was cropping up on people’s Instagram streams with an increasing regularity - including endorsement from celebs Drew Barrymore and Viola Davis. I really liked the detailed illustrations coupled with the silliness of the situations which I felt would really lend themselves to greeting cards,” reveals Martin Powderly, creative director of Pigment. “So, when Lisle Licensing, the licensing agent for Lucia’s
work in the UK, contacted me to see if we would be interested in publishing some of her work on greeting cards, it was a case of serendipitous timing,” added Martin. Amazed by the breadth of Lucia’s portfolio, which includes well over 1,000 of her artworks, as extra reassurance Martin and Pigment’s coowner and sales director Steve Baker selected a few images to gauge reactions from the publisher’s sales side, colleagues in the design studio and its retailer testers.
“From the offset, the reaction we had to Lucia’s work from our own sales team, our small ‘test’ groups with whom we poll new collections and buyers was fantastic,” commented Steve. “It seems like such a great fit for us.” As Martin elaborated, animal-themed greeting cards have been a mainstay for many publishers, including
Top left: Lucia Heffernan’s Yoga Chicks have attracted huge attention far and wide. Above middle: Martin Powderly. Above right: Pigment just had to include this King Charles Spaniel image by Lucia in its inaugural greeting card collection featuring her work. Inset: Lucia Heffernan now has created over 1,000 paintings many of which have fanfared in 20 exhibitions in the last three years alone.
46 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE