The London Studio Artists Collective wins twice at the 2024 Henries
Art licensing and design company The London Studio has announced that eight of its Artists Collective members have been honoured at this year’s Henries Awards, with two winning the ultimate accolade in greeting card publishing.
The London Studio licensed Jesuso Ortiz to Woodmansterne Publications, which won the Best Photographic Range category, while Shiny Valentine from Stormy Knight won in the Best Spring Seasons Range category. The winners were announced on Thursday 3 October 2023 at a lavish event held at the stylish Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.
This marks a record-breaking year of award accolades for The London Studio and its community of artists and publisher partners at the Henries. They received a whopping 23 preliminary shortlist nominations (up from 18 nominations last year), of which eight artists were finalists across eleven categories.
Winner of Best Photographic Range with Woodmansterne is internationally admired artist Jesuso Ortiz, based in Spain, who combines his own drawings with various household objects, food, and flora to produce minimalistic artifacts in a distinctive and highly original way. It’s a highly original approach that has already inspired published books of art and a collection of watches designed for Swatch – and now Woodmansterne is expanding its award-winning range of his exceptional work.
Woodmansterne estate manages and supplies the greeting card product and displays for principle retailers John Lewis and Waitrose and over 300 garden centres, at which Jesuso Ortiz’s distinctive and highly original designs have enjoyed enormous success.
Stormy Knight, winner of Best Spring Seasons Range, was set up in 2013 by its founder Sarah Jackson, alongside her day job as a graphic designer. Bored with working for corporate clients, Sarah poured her creativity into designing screen-printed batches of greeting cards and selling them to local shops in Bristol. Fast forward a decade, and her quirky, fun (and sometimes a little cheeky) designs can be found in some of the best design-led card and gift shops across the UK as well as internationally.
The London Studio Artists Collective was formed to bring together, mentor, promote and license exciting independent artists and creators such as these, each hand-picked by The London Studio, a service that has been further boosted by this success at the Henries.
Named after Sir Henry Cole (who introduced the first commercially produced Christmas card in 1843), The Henries were introduced by Progressive Greetings Worldwide magazine in 1996 as annual awards to shine the spotlight on greeting card ranges. Each year some 14,000 cards are entered for the two-stage judging process.
It’s been another great year at the Henries for the London Studio, whose Founder and Director, Soula Zavacopoulos, says: “In a highly competitive year for greeting cards we are thrilled that two of the publishers we have supported through The London Studio Artists Collective have been honoured at this leading event. It’s important to us to work with and promote distinctive and original artists – and it’s wonderful to see their hard work recognised by the industry that they serve.”
Awareness of The London Studio and its work is growing fast. Its success in greeting cards and gifts extends to a fast-growing list of international retailers and licensed publishers. It has also launched a number of specially created lifestyle brands appropriate for apparel, gifts, homeware, stationery and more.
