Flossy & Jim, Dartmouth
Two quirky Dartmouth illustrators are setting out their plans for world domination! Flossy and Jim, otherwise known as Lynette and James, create fun illustrations for business logos, children’s books, food packaging and family portraits, as well as having their own range of merchandise. Their work has already reached Australia and now they’re on their way to crack America and Europe. Steph Woolvin went to visit them in their town centre studio....
Straight away you can tell this pair are fun. From the moment I walk through the door (and try not to hit my head on the orange and pink pom poms hanging from the ceiling) I notice brightly coloured cartoons around the room, sweets on the shelves and a selection of biscuits laid out on the desk in front of me. Their mission in life is to ‘have fun and make the world a sunnier, funnier and more imaginative place to be’. “Life can be hard enough as it is,” says James with a mock serious look. “There’s always depressing news on the TV and let’s face it we don’t get a huge amount of sun in Britain, so we just try and tip the balance - bring everyone their Vitamin D through colour!”
The pair’s bright outlook on life developed after they each experienced a difficult few years before they met. Ex lorry driver James went through a divorce, then his dad died so he moved from Bristol to Paignton to help his mum. Lynette, who had two small children at the time, suffered a divorce, bankruptcy and lost her Swindon house in the process: “There was £5 in my purse and that was all the money I had in the world so I decided to pack up and move to Devon. I’ve always loved it here and when my children visited Brixham they said it looked like the children’s programme Balamory. So I thought that’s the place for us.” Lynette signed up for an illustration course at South Devon College where she came across James who had also decided on a fresh start and was doing an interior design course.
Their eyes met over a mass of books, paints and canvasses: “We had adjoining classrooms and when the doors were open I used to look in and try and get Lynette’s attention. We started talking one day and that was it,” says James.
When they graduated Lynette decided to set up an illustration business and called it ‘Flossy Illustration’ – Flossy was her grandma’s name and it also worked because Lynette’s hair was bright pink at the time and everyone said it looked like candy floss. “Actually it was my granddad who gave me the creative bug. He used to be a cartoonist for the Daily Mirror. I loved watching him work and his motto in life was “try and do what makes you happy, and if you can make others happy in the process - all the better.” Lynette admits she got a bit over excited when she left college and blew hundreds of pounds bulk buying mobile phone cases with her designs on in China. She had intended to sell them on her market stall but she soon realised there were other ways to go about sourcing the correct quantity of merchandise from UK suppliers. (She’s still got the phone cases in her wardrobe - as they may come in useful!) Her first job was to do a mural on the side of an ice cream parlour in Brixham. “I got James involved because I was so scared. I hadn’t done anything on such a big scale and everyone kept stopping to comment and ask questions, some thought we were graffitiing!” After that James joined the business and the name changed to ‘Flossy and Jim’.
Lynette does the initial design with sketchpad and pencil. James then transfers it onto the computer and adds the colour. The pair really do seem to work in harmony, leisurely drawing and clicking away. They did admit that things get a bit frantic just before a big deadline - apparently the music gets changed from the mellow beats currently playing to some hardcore techno! But the intensity of living and working together doesn’t bother them: “Loads of people say it must be a problem but it really isn’t,” says Lynette. “I try, every now and again, to go off for half an hour on my own to create space but I just miss him and want to find him again.” James quickly adds: “I know it does sound a bit cheese-balls but we are great mates and we love being around each other. We appreciate we have something awesome and we make the most of it.”
For their first couple of years the pair worked from home in their stylish fisherman’s cottage in Brixham but as the family grew the working space shrunk. James says it was like a zoo: “We used to get by with our stuff set up in the dining room but then we got two puppies called Olive and Rambo and two budgies called Pearl and Dean. Pearl sadly made a bid for freedom though. We were trying to make conference calls with dogs barking, children asking for tea and the remaining budgie circling overhead!” So in 2014 they moved into a studio in the Palladium Arcade in Dartmouth.
Lynette and James have had various jobs including creating 3000 cartoons for the National Curriculum and rebranding an Australian Coffee Company. They’ve worked alongside some top name clients including Heat Magazine, ASOS, Warehouse, MTV and Boomf marshmallows. Now they’re launching their first app in the Google Play Store and are working on a range of children’s books in America with a Hollywood film producer. Lynette admits she’s been a bit star struck: “We received an email asking if we were free to do some work. We were sat in our pjs having a video conference with him when it suddenly became clear he was a big wig in America who has since shown our work to Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.”
The pair have now appointed an agent to help them take their brand ‘Flossy and Jim’ and their new book ‘The Magical Unicorn Club’ worldwide. These unicorn-based stories will soon feature at two big branding shows in London and Las Vegas. The duo also create family portraits, for which there’s a three-month waiting list. James says they’re not your average family portrait: “We like to capture peoples’ idiosyncrasies, creating a world full of their most important things, whether that’s a child’s teddy who can turn into a super hero or a much loved dead dog who can feature with a halo above his head.”
So how does this fun-loving optimistic pair chill out after a hard day at the sketchpad and computer? James admits it’s not all rock and roll: “It’s usually Emmerdale, Corrie and a big mug of tea! We seem to have acquired a lot of older friends, and I mean older – 70s and 80s. I’m not sure how and why but there are plenty of them in Brixham and they’re a great laugh. We’ve also just become members of the National Trust so it’s certainly not all hardcore partying!” James is the chef at home, whipping up all kinds of organic recipes likes soups and stews. Lynette admits she doesn’t help out too much in the kitchen as she is rubbish at cooking but amazing at burning things.
At the weekends they sometimes bring the children into work, which pleases art-loving Kaitlin. “She is 11 and could probably run the business for us,” admits Lynette. “But 13-year-old Kai has more of a mathematical brain so he does get a bit bored with all the bright pinks and neon.” It may be all bright bubblegum colours on a daily basis but there is a darker side to Flossy and Jim which gets unleashed once a year at Halloween. Although a zombie with a bit of brain showing is as offensive as it gets.
The two are happy with their lighthearted outlook, which seems to be working very well for them and their growing business. James says after world domination, they just want to get away to Europe: “A cave in Spain is the goal – not an actual cave you understand - one of those homes built into the cliffs that are all the rage at the moment. We would like to settle there and eat cheese in our old age!”
First published By The Dart magazine March 2017