How did it go at the show?

No, I didn’t, but then that’s because it wasn’t that kind of a show. It was the kind of show where you get to meet business people, the sort of people who, as a rather chaotic creative type, I would normally not get near or even know where to find - but the sort of people who have a far bigger impact on our lives than you might realise.

I also have a cold coming, but that is also probably due to being out in the real world, so I brought it on myself really!

So - what is Brand Licensing Europe, and why were you there? I hear you ask - or indeed, I hope you want to know.

So - quick bit of history - in 2021, I stumbled across a prize for Brand design, when I was searching for my next steps after graduating from Falmouth University’s MA in illustration. I didn’t really know what that was, but it turned out to be for a visual concept, and it so happened I had just come up with one, without knowing that was what it was. This was a design for ceramics for my BFF’s birthday, a collection of hand-drawn images which reference the traditional patterns of delftware, but combined them with tattoo and skull imagery, for reasons of a long standing joke between us around the comedian Eddie Izzard, and a shared interest in afternoon tea.

The resulting images formed the first ‘Tea for Tattoo’ collection,which because my bid for the competition, which I went on to win. The prize included a stand at BLE in 2022, which was a pretty big prize, and which I did.

It seemed to go well, so in a burst of optimism I agreed to do it again the next year, despite the hefty fee, only two things happened which made this a bit of a daunting prospect.

The first was good news, in that I was signed by the Larkeshead Branding Agency to help build my brand, and the second less so was Liz Truss, who’s salad length power grab rather upset the economy. Everyone who had made promised got cold feet, and the money I had hoped to earn to pay for my stand did not materialise. And of course, I reasoned, I don’t need a stand if I have an agency wit their own, bigger stand I can be part of, so I tried to cancel it.

As the word try might indicate, the contract I had signed would let me pull out, but only if I paid for the stand anyway, so that wasn’t the best idea, but they were prepared to delay my slot for a year, so I just about managed to pay for it and there I was last week, back again at the excel centre.

If you’re not sure what licensing is, it works like this - pretty much everything you buy which isn’t plan, has some element of licensing involved in it. If you’ve ever bought anything because it was displaying images or links to something you like, from books, to movies to TV to, well, anything - someone has paid the people who invented those art forms, to use that image/character/thing, in order to catch your eye at the checkout.

This goes as much for those Peppa Pig pajamas you got for your niece ten Christmases ago, or the Ramones T-shirt they just bought at Top Shop - someone, somewhere has signed a deal with someone who earns the rights to those things, to make that happen. Otherwise you’d just be buying a plain t-shirt or pajamas, probably cheaper by less fun.

Of course, one thing BLE teaches the uninitiated, is, especially when it comes to things like clothing, pretty much everything you might see in a high street, is made by the same four companies, all of whom have licences with creatives from Disney, to Marvel, to Fifa and Black Lives Matter (yes, that is a licensable brand, as is Pride). It also teaches you that most children’s shows, or indeed most TV shows, make their money as much from what people will pay to stick their stuff on lunchboxes etc, as they do from the original movie/tv-show/event - and the ability to create fun licensing deals from franchises is a big consideration when it comes to what gets the green light.

I would also point out that, next time a middle aged white man has a go at a teenage girl for wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, please point out to them that the t-shirt was licensed by the record company who now own all the rights to those images to make money, and if they don’t like, maybe they have to concede that the dead musicians they idolise, are now a commodity often owned by the same people who own the right to Peppa Pig and Dad’s Army. If they don’t like it, maybe they should blame capitalism, rather than 14 year old girls.

In my own attempt to cash into this capitalism wonderland, obviously to bring it down from the inside, I had a number of conversation with a number of people who stopped in their tracks to look at the unique and hand drawn portfolio I’d dragged through the DLR to display there.

There was one big wall of this stuff….

And one wall of this stuff - plus me, my agents and a lot of business cards.

And, if you want to know if there was any exciting news to share after three days…….

Like me, you will have to wait and see, but you will be the first to know - well, right at the top of the list!