Lifestyle brand Flossy and Jim prepare to launch into India with Dot Badges

The animated character brand, Flossy and Jim, is set to launch into India this year thanks to a new partnership with Dot Badges, a leading online retailer of button badges, mobile sockets, laptop stickers, and notebooks.

Brokered by Edutainment Licensing working in tandem with Halysis Entertainment, the brand’s local licensing agent for India, Flossy and Jim will bring its colourful lifestyle brand to audiences across the region in its mission to deliver fun and happiness for cool kids and on-trend teens.

Created by Lynette and James, two illustrators living by the sea in picturesque Brixham, Devon in the UK, their mission from the beginning has been to help young people feel positive and supported in life using bright and bold designs with comical and on-trend slogans that their audience can relate to.

The pair regularly present workshops in schools, talking to pupils about their own personal journeys; encouraging and inspiring them to believe in themselves.

“We believe that Dot Badge will make an ideal partner to introduce the vibrant Flossy and Jim designs to youth of India.” said Aashish Goodae MD of Halysis Entertainment.

Lifestyle brand Flossy and Jim prepare to launch into India with Dot Badges

The animated character brand, Flossy and Jim, is set to launch into India this year thanks to a new partnership with Dot Badges, a leading online retailer of button badges, mobile sockets, laptop stickers, and notebooks.

Brokered by Edutainment Licensing working in tandem with Halysis Entertainment, the brand’s local licensing agent for India, Flossy and Jim will bring its colourful lifestyle brand to audiences across the region in its mission to deliver fun and happiness for cool kids and on-trend teens.

Created by Lynette and James, two illustrators living by the sea in picturesque Brixham, Devon in the UK, their mission from the beginning has been to help young people feel positive and supported in life using bright and bold designs with comical and on-trend slogans that their audience can relate to.

The pair regularly present workshops in schools, talking to pupils about their own personal journeys; encouraging and inspiring them to believe in themselves.

“We believe that Dot Badge will make an ideal partner to introduce the vibrant Flossy and Jim designs to youth of India.” said Aashish Goodae MD of Halysis Entertainment.

Flossy and Jim lands stand-out poster position with Kennedy Publishing’s 100% Wow magazine

Flossy and Jim, the creative team behind the Horace & Co series of children’s books has secured a stand-out poster slot within Kennedy Publishing popular tween girls’ magazine title, 100% Wow.

Aimed at girls aged nine to 12 years old, 100% Wow boasts girl-powered features, puzzles, and pop culture all designed to spark children’s imagination and inspire their creativity. In a deal brokered by Edutainment Licensing, parallels were drawn between the 100% Wow brand and Flossy and Jim, that has resulted in the character brand securing a poster position within the latest issue.

Brimming with inspiring celebs, hot trends and high-value competitions, plus popular gaming and movie content 100% Wow is designed specifically to bridge the gap between childhood interests and teen culture.

The Flossy and Jim ‘you are out of this world’ poster will feature in issue six which goes on sale from August 27th to October 1st in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda.

Horace & Co celebrates World Autism Awareness Week with BookrKids digital library

It’s World Autism Awareness Week, and to champion the recognition and understanding of the condition among children across the UK, Horace & Co, the popular publishing property from Flossy and Jim, has just partnered with the BookrKids digital library.

Created by Lynette Dare, the co-founder of Flossy and Jim, when she began writing her own stories for her autistic son, Horace & Co uses its stories to encourage children to try new foods, meet new friends and prepare to visit new places.

The books aim to help all children relate to everyday scenarios and understand how the world works, as they discover that everyone has qualities that are different.

The BookrKids App is an easy to use library application for children aged two to ten years old and features a vast library of interactive, educational stories. The library has been curated by a panel of children’s literature experts and each is enriched with animation, narration, and text highlighting.

BookrKids also features a number of games related to particular stories, as well as sound effects and music.

“It’s proven that using the application helps children improve reading skills and develop a good relationship with stories and quality literature, while thanks to the special features, the traditional books are presented to them in a form that they can easily find attractive,” read a statement from the firm.

Flossy and Jim lands on photo-editing app Meitu as activity in China beings to pick up

Flossy and Jim is making new headwinds in China having landed a new partnership with the global mobile app, Meitu. The deals arrives as life in China slowly begins to return to normal following a two-month period of lockdown across the region.

With partner in the region now back in the office and activity picking back up in the country, Edutainment Licensing has confirmed the new partnership that now brings Flossy and Jim to the popular photo editing app.

Available on Google Play and in the App store, and endorsed by celebrities and key influencers, the Meitu app was selected as one of iTunes top 10 apps of the year.

It has become one of the most popular photo editing apps of all time giving users access to an incredible suite of professional filters, frames, effects, stickers and other tools to turn their smartphone photos into works of art.

Launched in 2008, Meitu is a global innovator in mobile technology with its apps being used by more than 450 million monthly active users worldwide, generating more than 6 billion photos and videos each month.

Flossy and Jim: “The digital revolution is lifting barriers and letting in a lot of new ideas”

Living by the sea in Devon’s picturesque Brixham, it’s little wonder why Lynette and James Dare, otherwise known as Flossy and Jim, the artistic duo behind the popular design brand of the same name, are awash with creative energy.

It’s a deep portfolio of design-driven, illustrative IP that the pair has to its name, spanning not only the world of Flossy and Jim itself, but an anthropomorphic universe of Horace (the Hamster) & Co, both of which have been developed to help support young people today.

Together, their’s is a mission to help today’s youth feel positive, a statement not only issued thought their use of bright and bold on-trend designs and the innate humour of both Flossy and Jim, and Horace & Co, but also through the way in which Lynette and James embody the brands themselves. 

Together, they both regularly present workshops n schools, talk to pupils about their personal journeys, and encourage them to believe in themselves. It’s good news, then, that the message of Flossy and Jim is beginning to travel far and wide thanks to a licensing programme that is gathering momentum under the watch of Edutainment Licensing.

Licensing.biz has a chat with Lynette and James Dare about Flossy and Jim, Horace & Co, and the latest developments for the portfolio.

It’s been a busy past few months for you guys – what do you think has fuelled or help drive the success of the brand on an international scale? How has this set you up for 2020… what are your expectations for the year ahead?

Working with young people in schools has really helped as we have been able to identify upcoming trends, find out more about our target audience and to develop our style guide. We have been able to create designs that are relatable to young people and help them feel more positive. Working with our agent at Edutainment licensing has been crucial to develop strategies and to secure deals, and attending BLE has really helped us to launch our brand in the UK and internationally.

Our expectations for 2020 is to keep working with young people, keep creating and to build our brand awareness even further.

Can you tell us a bit about Flossy and Jim and what you guys are bringing to the licensing space? How did it all begin for you, and did you foresee the kind of international recognition you have been picking up?

When we began creating the ‘Flossy and Jim’ designs in 2013, we were working part time in schools to deliver workshops to build confidence and self-esteem, by doing this we were meeting with our target audience and learning about what matters to them which helped us really understand our audience.

It became clear that a lot of these children and young adults were suffering with mental health issues and it was then that we realised that we wanted to create designs that would help, and shift the balance of negative content on social media. We never imagined that the brand would grow internationally, it has been amazing.

You guys seem to be coming from a unique angle with the more design led Flossy and Jim, combined with your approach to the publishing space through Horace & Co. How did this approach come about?

How will you now build on the recent success – what developments in licensing will you be looking towards for the year ahead?

At Flossy and Jim we create bold and bright designs that are relatable and help young people feel good. Kids love the ‘on-trend’ art style and can engage with the brands look and humour. Flossy and Jim is design led so we are able to provide new illustrations quickly and efficiently in an ever-evolving trend driven world.

The Horace and Co books were a personal project for about ten years. My son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three and we found daily activities like going to the doctor or going to the shop incredibly difficult. We discovered that drawing little stories really helped to prepare him for the next activity of the day. I looked for social stories like this to buy but could not find any so I decided to create my own.

The Horace & Co. books have been created to help children to relate to every day scenarios and understand how the world around them works. They’ll find out that everyone has qualities that are different, but those unique traits make them who they are, and loved. The titles have now been published with Signature Gifts as personalised books so the child is placed as the centre of the story.

We are currently in discussions for a really exciting publishing project that we hope to be able to share in the coming months.

It’s great to see you guys tap into the AR/XR sector. What inspired this move? How important will new and emerging technology be for the licensing space in driving innovation?

We LOVE augmented reality and we are inspired by how far technology is developing. When we got the opportunity to bring Horace the Hamster and his friends to life, how could we say no? We are very excited to work more in the AR sector and bring more designs to life.

We recently joined the government coalition ‘Future.Now’ headed by the Lord Mayor of London and we pledged that we would do what we could to ensure no young person is left behind in the digital revolution. We feel that alongside our work in schools, AR is a fantastic way to inspire children into the world of technology while they are learning and having fun.

One of the biggest changes we have seen is the challenge of being able to work with the high street retailers – this has resulted in us partnering with online retailers which has been great.

What is the health of the design space at the moment? is enough being done to encourage creativity here in the UK,

The creative sector remains one of the UK’s leading industries and from our experience of working in schools, we feel the arts should become a greater priority in the national curriculum, especially in the midst of the digital revolution.

Aside from this, it has recently been discovered that young people are on the brink of the worst ever mental health crisis. The importance of children’s self-expression as a means to a healthy and happy mind, is an essential part of their education.

A common fear amongst young people we teach is that ‘robots will take away all of their future jobs’. We always say ‘they cannot take away your imagination and creativity!’

Do you think the licensing sector is encouraging enough for creativity?

The licensing sector for us has been very encouraging. We love watching our designs go from an idea, into a product and then to market…it’s addictive actually!

What role does creativity have to play in rejuvenating the UK’s retail landscape?

Retailers are going to have to get more creative and innovative in their ideas to capture their audience in a highly saturated market. It’s going to be interesting to see how the development of technology alongside the efforts to be more ethical and sustainable will drive creativity to a whole new level.

As illustrators watching the digital revolution unfold, we can see barriers being lifted and with that comes new ideas. It’s a very exciting time.

Flossy and Jim’s Horace & Co storybooks land partnership with AR specialist Bookful

Flossy and Jim has embarked on a new partnership with the award-winning AR app Bookful to bring the Horace & Co storybooks to its mobile library.

Bookful is the brainchild of Inception XR, a content platform that delivers extended reality (XR) to readers. It boasts a library of over 100 books and games for children, creating a universe where books are brought to life in augmented reality.

Under the new deal, the Horace & Co titles will be available for download via the app and will include Horace the Disgusted Hamster, Custard the Wibbly-Wobbly Dinosaur and Where are you Mr Blue?

Each book featured in the app – available on the App Store and Google Play – will allow children to read the story with 3D animations that can be projected in the user’s environment using AR technology. This is supported by a suite of assistive reading functions including narration, subtitles, and interactive activities to engage the reader.

“We are so excited to be bringing books to life through augmented reality, the titles are sure to entertain, educate and delight both children and parents alike,” said Denise Deane, owner of Edutainment Licensing who brokered the deal.

“Bookful is about creating meaningful screen time,” said Benny Arbel, CEO, Inception. “We are on an educational mission to get kids excited about reading, and through 3D and AR reclaim some of the digital screen time for our favourite books and stories.”

The titles are to be marketed to English Language territories worldwide and will also be available in Mandarin, Japanese and Korean for a growing number of distribution partners in Asia and beyond.