Forever Friends (brand)

For the 2008 Olympics song, see Forever Friends (song).

Forever Friends is a brand of Hallmark Cards, based on a Bear design. The Forever Friends bear can be found in 40 countries and in 15 languages.^[1]

History

In 1987, artist Deborah Jones drew the first ever Forever Friends bear in her sketchbook. She approached Bath, Somerset based greeting cards publishers Andrew Brownsword, who agreed to release the bear design as a greeting card. The pair worked in a flat above a Chinese takeaway in Reading, Berkshire in the early 1980s:^[2]

"I wanted to develop a teddy bear that appealed to adults as well as children. I based Forever Friends specifically on the teddy bear that Sebastian Flyte carried around in Brideshead Revisited. It became the bear found in the attic."

In 1989, the design was registered under the trademark Forever Friends.

In 1994 Andrew Brownsword Ltd was purchased by Hallmark Cards. Brownsword himself agreed to become the CEO of Hallmark Europe,^[3] while the new money allowed the whole of card design was updated to include a border.

In 1997 new sub-brand Between Friends was issued, focusing on children's cards. This was followed in 2000 by Blanc, a plain pencil on whitecard design focused on older people. This was also the last design set Deborah Jones worked on, as she retired from what was now Hallmark's Bath design studio.

In 2005, Forever Friends was relaunched with a water colour based look, textured paper on cards and a more modern font. By 2008, the range of cuddly toys had been supplemented by a range of digital downloads.

In 2011 the "Forever Friends Naturals" range was launched by Grace Cole Limited, taking the lovable bears as the face of a cute and cuddly range of natural skincare products for babies and children.

References

External links

• Forever Friends website

Teddy bears
Bear manufacturers	Build-A-Bear Workshop Chad Valley J. K. Farnell Gund Ideal Toy Company Margarete Steiff GmbH Merrythought Teddy Atelier Stursberg Teddy-Hermann Ty Inc. Vermont Teddy Bear Company
Types of bear	AG Bear Beanie Babies Boyds Bears Care Bears Coffee Bean Bears Forever Friends Freddy Teddy Gund Snuffles Holiday Beanie Babies Me to You Bears WereBears
Teddy bear museums	Teddy bear museum Dorset Teddy Bear Museum Teddy Bear Museum of Naples
Famous teddies	Aloysius Archibald Ormsby-Gore Benjamin Bear Berlino Duffy the Disney Bear Fozzie Bear Freddy Fazbear Grizzly Teddy Lotso Microsoft Bear Misha Nassur Nev Paddington Bear Pooky Pudsey Bear Rilakkuma Roosevelt Rupert Bear Rupert (Family Guy) Smokey Sooty SuperTed Teddy (Mr. Bean) Teddy Ruxpin Uszatek Mr Whoppit Winnie-the-Pooh Yogi Bear
Film and television	The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin Bear Behaving Badly Becky and Barnaby Bear C Bear and Jamal Colargol Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears Issi Noho Old Bear Stories Paddington The Secret World of Benjamin Bear SuperTed Ted Ted 2 The Teddy Bear Master Teddy Edward The Yogi Bear Show Boonie Bears
Books	Corduroy Little Bear Old Bear and Friends Teddy Dressing The Berenstain Bears Uppo-Nalle Winkie Winnie-the-Pooh
Music	"(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" "Psycho Teddy" "Teddy Bears' Picnic" "The Teddy Bear Song"
Video games	Build-A-Bear Workshop Hubert the Teddy Bear: Winter Games Naughty Bear Opération Teddy Bear
Related topics	The Bear Club Peter Bull Gummy bears Round and round the garden SGUL Teddy Bear Hospital Richard Steiff Sudanese blasphemy case Teddybear Airdrop Minsk 2012 Teddy bear parachuting Teddy Bear Review Teddy bear toss Teddy Grahams Theodore Roosevelt