A Bright New Division for BGI

Bright Group International has announced the launch of a new division, called Bright and Beyond Licensing, to focus specifically on brand licensing.

BLE 2010 will mark Bright and Beyond's debut and the team will showcase the full range of Bright properties. These include Hallmark brand Country Companions and ZSL London Zoo, both of which have been extended into publishing, as well as characters based on two picture books from children's author/illustrator Sue Hendra, "Barry the Fish with Fingers" and the forthcoming "Wanda the Alien." Despite not appearing on the shelves yet, "Wanda" has already been optioned for television by Random House Children's Screen Entertainment, while talks are also taking place about the possibility of an animated TV series starring Barry.

Bright and Beyond also represents exclusive content currently being created by Will Brenton, who runs the BAFTA-winning production company Wish Films. Brenton has collaborated on two new picture books with artist Holly Clifton-Brown, "Elephant White" and "Claude." The titles have already been snapped up for publishing by Templar and Egmont, respectively.

In addition, Bright and Beyond will manage the creation of in-house content, using the creative talent within BGI to produce a range of design, publishing and content-led properties with potential across all sectors.

"The creation of Bright and Beyond has been born out of necessity as we are now doing so much work in the field of brand licensing and our increasing success and growth in this area made it vital for us to have a dedicated licensing division," says Vicki Willden-Lebrecht, BGI's managing director.