Hidden Pigeon Company’s Tori Cook and Scott Sosebee talk style guides, future plans and adult fans

Guys, it’s great to catch up. Scott, this is our first time chatting for Brands Untapped, so could you tell us a bit about your route to Hidden Pigeon Company?
Scott Sosebee, Creative Director, HPC: My design journey started with creating band posters and record covers because I was a touring musician. Then I moved to New York and started working in luxury branding before transitioning into children’s publishing. I brought my own mix of punk rock band poster aesthetic paired with high-end typography to the design I was doing.

I was freelancing for Hyperion at the time, and one of Mo’s projects came across my desk. Then more Mo projects came my way and it turned out he was requesting me because he liked my design, so I started designing all of his marketing materials. Then I started helping him create his actual books. When Mo first started releasing his licensed Activity Books, I began to design and illustrate them. The busier Mo got with writing plays and creating fine art exhibitions, the more I took over the role of guiding his brands in a way that ensured they all tied together design-wise.

I’ve been working with Mo for about 17 years now, so when Hidden Pigeon Company was founded, I became the Creative Director and that’s what I’m doing now – making sure everything looks on brand.

Terrific. And Tori, what is the key to a harmonious commercial/creative relationship at a brand owner like HPC?
Tori Cook, SVP of Franchise Management and Consumer Products, HPC: It always starts with the source material. Anybody who’s going to straddle the line between commercial and creative has to understand the heart of the brand and the root of the brand. And then it’s about having the best people on the creative side to help guide that forward. Scott understands the brand deeply and is able to translate it from Mo at the heart, to myself on the commercial side, which is a very unique position to be within.

You have this waterfall effect; it starts with Mo and his characters at the source, then it comes into HPC to be translated into a commercial vision, then Scott translates that into the creative execution. Then we hand that off to a licensee to manufacture products. Then Scott comes back to it during the product development phase. It’s a complicated process to manage, but it’s the most exciting part of it, too. That’s why having a unified vision between creative and commercial helps to keep the process smooth.

What does a successful style guide need to do these days?
Tori: Because we’re a publishing-based property, getting the editorial right is key; that means getting the humour and the appeal of the characters. How does this guide express the emotions that a kid feels when they first read that book? And how do we marry that feeling up with a fresh, modern look? Because when I look at Mo’s books from 20 years ago, they feel like they were written today.

And the books look so simple and clean design-wise.
Tori: Yes, it has that colour palette and simplicity. Mo always says: ‘Simple and easy are opposites.’ That is very hard to translate into a guide. The simplicity of the characters, the beautiful colours, the reliance upon editorial. That’s why I think what Scott has done is remarkable.

Yes, Scott, when it comes to the guides, making designs ‘busier’ could almost be seen as a betrayal to the clean and simple layouts of the books. How have you approached walking that line to evolve the designs so they’re ‘licensing-ready’?
Scott: Yes, the simplicity of the books – especially the interiors ­– do not lend themselves well to ads or marketing. When we started marketing these books, I was always trying to figure out a way to take up all of that negative space with information that buyers needed to see. Throughout that process, I worked together with Mo directly to come up with something that wasn’t too busy but managed to be a conduit to getting information to the viewer.

We established that style over a really long time, so when it was time to make the style guides, I had 15 years of marketing materials at hand and that was useful in getting us to where we are today. And interestingly, some of the page layouts very naturally lent themselves to product. This is a cover of a Pigeon notebook and it’s a lift almost directly from a page out of one of the Pigeon books. What he’s saying has been changed, but the muted colour palette is a recognizable aspect of the brand. It stands out sitting next to super bright colours of other products on the shelf.

Yes, that simplicity is a key aspect of the brand’s design language now – and it looks great too! And how often are you doing style guides for the brands?
Tori: Well, HPC has been around for only two years now. The time that it takes to develop the guides, find the licensees, go through product development and to manufacturing is an 18-month and sometimes 24-month process.

Our core guides that Scott created were key because they were part of the first entry we’ve had into the marketplace for things like kids’ apparel and sleepwear. We just did a beautiful collaboration with Hanna Andersson and that process started with the style guides that Scott had created. Hanna Andersson then interpreted it for their customer. They played with the size of the graphics to create a range that feels very on trend.

We will eventually get to trend guides, but right now it’s about establishing ourselves with the core guides.

What makes brands like Elephant and Piggie and The Pigeon exciting for designers at licensees to engage with?
Tori: With The Pigeon, I think licensees – especially from a soft lines perspective – really like that the character has endless expressions. And they convey a lot with a little – like this image of The Pigeon with a side eye. And there are endless expressions that designers at licensees can engage with. There’s a freedom that comes with that.

With Elephant and Piggie, it’s a different dynamic. The Pigeon has a relationship with the reader, while Elephant and Piggie’s relationship is largely focused between themselves and the friendship they have. Piggie is always up for an adventure and Gerald’s a little bit more hesitant, so the question becomes how do we express that within product?

Do you think there’s scope to service adult fans of these brands with products?
Scott: We did a Pigeon book aimed at adults called Be the Bus, and that has a different artwork style – almost pop art-style, bright colour screen printing vibes. We haven’t embraced that sort of thing for consumer products yet, but I think it’s in the works.

Tori: Yes, it’s in the works. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus was written 22 years ago, so there’s a nostalgic appeal with Gen Z adults today. We’re able to take a very simple, as Mo would call it, graphic with editorial and translate it for both kids and for the adults. The magic happens when they have that shared experience, so we’re looking at how we can develop more products where a family can share the same products – like with pyjamas. It’s in our plans!

Fantastic. And does the simplicity of the design lend itself to collabs nicely? Like what you’ve done with the Yankees x Pigeon partnership?
Tori: Absolutely. And at the moment, when we do this kind of thing, we look at brands where we can still retain the pure core form of Elephant, Piggie or the Pigeon – but in the future, I think we can do different character mash-ups where you bring worlds together.

That also speaks to the trend guide conversation. Scott and I talk all the time about how to reinterpret the characters into different styles. What if we changed their outlines? What if we made them 8-bit? As we’re only starting to expand the brands into consumer products, it’s important to make sure that core form is out there first.

Absolutely. And before we wrap up, what have been some important recent milestones on HPC’s licensing journey so far?
Tori: The first one would be our soft lines expansion. As mentioned, we’ve just had a very successful soldout collaboration with Hanna Andersson, the high-end kids’ pyjamas we did here in the United States. We have more to come with Hanna Andersson because of that successful range.

The next one that we did was Tonies, with both the Elephant and Piggie and The Pigeon, launches that were incredibly successful. We have also signed with them for Knuffle Bunny, which is one of the top three properties within our portfolio.

And then there’s everything we’ve done with Major League Baseball. Kids and parents reading together is a shared experience, so we think about how to extend that experience into different co-brands and collabs. The Yankees happened on July 13 at Yankee Stadium and we’ll have another game with them in September. We also will have a game in September with the Kansas City Royals, but with a literacy spin to it. The shared experience with parents at a baseball field is something quite delightful for us.

And which categories are you targeting next?
Tori: With us just starting out, there’s no shortage of categories that we’re going after! We are being very conscientious because we are building an evergreen brand. We’re not being short-sighted. We’re looking for partners who will really work with us and understand the brand to keep that aspirational aesthetic affordable and accessible. That’s really important to us.

Toys will be very big for us. Right now, we are keeping it within some key items like plush, but we’re not expanding too far too deep because entertainment is on the horizon. We want to make sure that we save space for that big entertainment moment coming up.

And we can’t dive into the exciting entertainment stuff down the road, can we? That’s top secret for now?
Tori: Not quite yet. I have to leave room for our next chat!

Ha! Nicely done! Well, I look forward to exploring that exciting news down the line. Scott, one last question for you – what fuels your creativity?
Scott: Not to sound trite, but it’s going for a walk – getting out of my office and walking around or even getting on the subway or a bus and just riding. Sometimes, it’s good to sit in the park with my sketchbook. Basically, staying away from the distractions of my computer and phone fuels my creativity.

And you mentioned being a musician earlier. Does listening to music help?
Scott: I was a drummer in a punk band, but that’s not my soundtrack these days. I prefer jazz or classical when I’m working (or a good true-crime podcast). Mo grew up in New Orleans, and I feel that jazz plays a big role in his work. So, I often try to create a similar soundtrack to inspire me when I’m designing.

Guys, a huge thanks again. Always lovely to catch up.