Over the past 40 years, Mary Engelbreit has transformed her career from designing a single line of greeting cards into leading a multimillion-dollar art company. As of 2024, Mary Engelbreit Studios manages over 40 collaborations, licensing her original designs for a diverse range of products—from greeting cards to fabrics—across the globe. The Engelbreit brand, born from Mary’s artistic talent and strategic use of intellectual property (IP), serves as an inspiring example of how artists can thrive using licensing as a business model.
Mary Engelbreit’s artistic beginnings
The extraordinary talent of Mary Engelbreit, a now famous graphic artist and children's book illustrator, was obvious from an early age. As a young girl, Mary just wanted to draw pictures and moved into her first “studio”, a hastily vacated linen closet in the home where she grew up, when she was just 11 years old. “We jammed a desk and chair in there, and I'm sure it was 110 degrees”, she remembers. “But I would happily sit in that closet for hours at a time and draw pictures”. Today Mary Engelbreit says that her parents’ serious and respectful attitude to their daughter’s interest laid the foundation for her future success; her parents did not doubt she could make it – and neither did she.
Mary Engelbreit: an artist who never went to an art school
Mary’s remarkable success both in the art industry and in business is even more astonishing when you learn that she never acquired professional training in art – or in business management. Instead of continuing her education after high school, Mary chose to work at an art supply store in St. Louis, Missouri. This is where she learned that making a living as an artist was possible: she interacted with professional artists daily for almost 2 years at the store. This experience gave her further confidence to pursue her dreams.
Over the next few years she worked for a small ad agency, accepted free-lance projects on the side, held independent showings of her own art, and even worked for a short time as an editorial cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. These experiences taught her about the business side of art industry, which she would probably not be able to learn at an art school.
Mary Engelbreit’s artistic style development
According to Mary, at the very beginning of her artistic practice she was greatly influenced by fairytale books with works of children’s illustrators from the 1920s and 30s, such as Jessie Willcox Smith and Johnny Gruelle. Another childhood inspiration, gift book illustrator Joan Walsh Anglund, who drew simple drawings illustrating single sentences, was at the roots of Mary Engelbreit’s now cult drawings with catchy phrases.
With practice, Mary has developed her own easily recognizable and nostalgic illustration style. The absence of a formal art training clearly was not a disadvantage to her career. In fact, she now believes that it gave her an opportunity to develop her style without having to adapt it to academic requirements.
Rejection as an opportunity: Mary Engelbreit’s greeting cards
Young Mary Engelbreit knew that her best work happened when she developed her own ideas, uninfluenced by management’s requirements. What she truly wanted was to be a children's book illustrator. In 1977, newlywed and with enthusiastic encouragement from her husband, Phil Delano, she took her portfolio to New York City to try her luck at some well-known publishing houses. To her disappointment, Mary received a “mild reception” from publishers and a suggestion from one art director that she try her hand illustrating greeting cards. “I was kind of crushed at the time”, she recalls. “It seemed like a real come-down from illustrating books”. But soon enough, Mary realized that the suggestion had merit. She found that the greeting card format played well into her style of illustration. Within months, she had made her first licensing deal by selling three card designs for USD 150 and signed a short-term contract with another greeting card company.
Mary Engelbreit Studios: a brand born through licensing
Once Mary had shifted her talent and energy to greeting cards, several well-known card companies bought her designs, and sales were brisk. Mary Engelbreit has been grasping opportunities ever since, expanding from licensing greeting card illustrations to designs for a wide range of products including calendars, clothes, mugs, gift books, fabrics and more.
Today, thousands of retailers sell Mary Engelbreit products to her countless fans, and Mary Engelbreit Studios continues to add new licensees and product categories. As of 2024, Mary Engelbreit Studios with an annual sales of roughly USD 4 million has almost 40 ongoing collaborations and over 2500 manufactured and licensed products.
Mary Engelbreit on licensing business model
By 1986, Mary Engelbreit greeting cards had blossomed into a million-dollar-a-year business. She decided to license her cards to Sunrise Publications to free up more time for her art and to grow her business in other areas. In 1995, she brought on Greg Hoffmann, longtime friend and legal counsel, as Chief Executive Officer to run the business.
“Starting out in the licensing business is difficult”, Mary admits. “Producing and marketing designs is an enormous, expensive undertaking that I didn’t try until I was well known in the industry and had a partner with a lot of business experience and good contacts at the bank”. To launch her greeting card business, Mary borrowed USD 60,000 to cover the printing costs for 5,000 copies of each of the twenty designs she started out with. She then focused on drawing to increase her card collection to the more than 100 designs needed to establish a legitimate line. Meanwhile her partner focused on the marketing and distribution side of the business, forming a network of sales representatives to promote Mary’s cards to shops throughout the country and running booths at relevant trade shows.
“We were successful, I think, because more and more people became familiar with my work and my name. My drawings were very different from anything else already on the market – giving me an edge.” Originality led to Mary’s success, but it took time. “We paid our staff (a warehouse person and two secretaries), the local printer, and our reps, but we didn’t pay ourselves for a year and a half. In short, getting started from scratch is more than a MONUMENTAL, full-time task, and I needed income from another source all the while.”
Mary Engelbreit on copyright
Mary is well aware that her creative work is protected by copyright and recommends that artists retain all rights to their work and copyright each design in their name once they are printed. “Retaining my copyrights allows me the freedom to license the same image to multiple manufacturers. For example, my ‘Chair of Bowlies’ image has been licensed to reproduce everything from T-shirts and mugs to posters and stationery”, Mary explains.
“Licensing entitles artists with copyrighted artwork to be paid a royalty. A royalty is a percent based on the amount of product sold at wholesale to retailers. The beauty of licensing is that the manufacturer bears the risk and responsibility for actually making and distributing the products. The artists, in turn, have more time to draw!” she sums up.
Mary Engelbreit Enterprises’ trademarks
In 1988, Mary Engelbreit Enterprises filed their first trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), registering "Mary Engelbreit" as a service mark. Since then, Mary Engelbreit enterprises have filed over 30 trademarks including Mary Engelbreit® (registered for “licensing of copyrighted and trademarked custom graphic artwork for use in gifts and home furnishings”, “retail variety store services” and “flat paper goods, namely, stationary and social note cards”), Leading the artful life® (registered for “stationary and magazines in the field of interior decorating and design, home improvements, cooking, artwork and crafts, and gardening and/or landscape design”), and ME ink® (registered for “greeting cards”).
As of 2024, Mary Engelbreit holds 5 active trademarks in the United States and Canada, for her brand name Mary Engelbreit, its logo, and Mary & Co brand (in Canada).
Business results of Mary Engelbreit Enterprises
Mary Engelbreit Enterprises has licensing contracts with dozens of manufacturers who produce her illustrations on some 6,500 products. In 2024, these licensed products are sold by thousands of retailers in the United States and abroad. Already by 2010, the business had more than USD 1 billion in lifetime retail sales, and as of 2024, her online store carries more than 2,500 products.
Mary saw her original dream come true in 2001 when she signed a contract to illustrate children's books for publishing giant HarperCollins. Her debut book, "The Night Before Christmas," spent eleven weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. In addition, in 2019 she created costume designs for the musical “Matilda”.
Between 1996 and 2009, Mary was also editor-in-chief of the award-winning creative lifestyle magazine “Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion” covering topics such as family life, food, decorating, craft projects, flea markets and collectibles.
In 2000 and 2002, Mary Engelbreit was honored with the “Best Art License of the Year” awards at the Annual LIMA Gala & Awards Ceremony for the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association (LIMA). Also in the year 2000, she was listed as the second best-selling licensed property – second only to Winnie the Pooh.
