Woodmansterne Publications does not claim to have all the solutions, but its latest range, Little Genius, provides a fair few important answers to life’s imponderables.
Among these is: ‘When is it okay to kiss someone?’ The answer is conclusive: “When they are rich,” according to Pam, a savvy seven year old.
Another conundrum, relevant to our ageing population: “How do you remember your age?” is answered swiftly by Tina: “Just look inside your pants, Mine says five to six.”
The Little Genius card collection has come about as a result of a licensing collaboration with Soula Zavacopoulos, founder of design company The London Studio from where the Wisdom of Kids brand, based on children’s real observations on life.
Woodmansterne has selected some of the funniest quotes from The Wisdom of Kids archive and is now publishing them under its Little Genius brand, a young sibling to its established popular Genius adult humour brand. The card range launch is being backed up by fully-fledged social media campaign and competitions which will inspire members of the public to share their own ‘little darlings’ views on life, the universe and the differences between the sexes.
The Woodmansterne team turned the tables on husband and wife duo, Ian and Esther Blake (the publisher’s art director and key account manager) when their young son Jack was asked to select which design he agreed with the most. “He seemed to think the ‘mummy’s the boss’ card to be most relevant!” revealed Kate Leach, Woodmansterne’s head of marketing.
Former card publisher, (who now focuses her time on developing the brand concepts she creates) Soula Zavacopoulos makes no bones about how delighted she is that Woodmansterne is publishing the range. “I also have always had a tremendous amount of admiration for Woodmansterne, so I am over the moon to be working with them on this! They have an incredibly talented team and really know their stuff. My ‘baby’ is in safe hands!”
Soula shares some insights into how the Wisdom of Kids brand was ‘born’ as well as its growing pains and gains.
How did you come up with the idea initially?: “It was while I was designing another range of cards I’d thought up, which featured quotes from adults pondering philosophical questions on life, love, the differences of the sexes etc. Although the quotes were funny, they were logical, adult ‘wisdoms’. It occurred to me that getting a child to answer life’s questions would be more unusual and would likely produce more unexpected, unique and fun results!
I thought back to funny things my little cousins and friends’ children would innocently come out with, that were not even meant to be funny, but would have us all in stitches nevertheless and instinctively I knew I was onto something! Thinking up the idea was the easy part, getting the quotes from children and their parents was what took me a lot of work and took a very long time, but eventually ‘The Wisdom of Kids’ was born!’
What were Wisdom of Kids’ baby steps?: “I was actually a publisher myself, so I first published The Wisdom of Kids myself, through my company, The London Studio.
At the time I was a one-man-band publisher, just starting out and so I didn’t have a lot of stockists. But those I did supply re-ordered The Wisdom of Kids constantly – their customers couldn’t get enough of it and to my delight, my new range was flying off the shelves!
Soon after launch the range made the finals of The Henries Awards in the ‘Best Words & Sentiments Range” category, while I personally was shortlisted for ‘Most Promising Young Designer in the same awards. This spurred me on to exhibit the range at my first trade show, PG Live (I had a tiny 1×1.5 metre stand!) The range also won the Gift of the Year Award 2011, as well as other awards, including design awards and entrepreneur awards. “
Share some more ‘proud mum’ claims to fame: “Wisdom of Kids has 75,000 Facebook fans. I do not use a social media marketing agency to grow the page and I have no advertising budget. I simply post onto the page myself – and quite sporadically at that! But the popularity has grown as people really love the funny things kids say, so posts are shared organically and more and more people ‘like’ the page.
A top UK humour publisher turned the card range into a book, in over two months the brand raised over £3,500 for BBC Children in Need, from sales of The Wisdom of Kids book, helping disadvantaged children across the UK. We also helped raise money for another children’s charity, The Children’s Trust, through greeting card sales.”
What’s this about its celebrity following?: ”A number of celebrities have shown support and love for the range via Twitter, including Jamie Oliver, Boy George, Peter Andre, Caprice, Deborah Meaden (BBC Dragon), Gemma Collins (TOWIE) and Dannii Minogue – who even took the time to take photos of the book and recommend it to all of her Twitter followers!
In addition, BBC Dragons’ Den star and retail magnate, Theo Paphitis selected The London Studio as winner of his SBS Award for small businesses. When I met him at the awards do, I gave him a bespoke Wisdom of Kids card as a thank you. Theo said he thought it was a terrific range – and a few years on, when a book of the range was published, he wrote a testimonial for the front cover, telling the world how much he loved it!”
The Little Genius range from Woodmansterne is being delivered into stores now.
