Author: Carousel

Carousel Worldwide Releases New Notebook Range for International Markets

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Carousel Worldwide Releases New Notebook Range for International Markets

Carousel Worldwide is delighted to announce its debut in the notebook market with the launch of 19 stunning new notebook products. Drawing upon their vast experience with dated printed product, this was a natural extension to their existing array of diaries, and uses many of the famous brands and licences with which they currently have successful partnerships.

The range has been introduced to help with Carousel’s expansion into new international markets, and particularly the US. This is alongside the recent acquisition of Gladstone Media, US publisher of dated products, that further increased Carousel’s reach into the American market.

Seeking to take a different approach to notebooks, Carousel has taken best-selling licences and titles and applied them to a new range of attractive and useful products.  The range includes Emma Bridgewater, RBG Kew, Bree Merryn, New York Botanical Gardens, Kate Smith, Georgia Breeze, Banksy, See America National Parks, Kilted Yoga, Firefighters and more.

The new notebooks will incorporate a rear pocket, elastic closure, an inside ribbon, and over 170 sheets of quality paper, and will finish with retails of E13.99, US$15.99 and £10.99.

A mix of photographic and illustrated styles means there is a design for everyone, with the aim being to build on existing bestselling calendars and further strengthen the brands with notebooks that can be sold all year round.

From an environmental perspective, Carousel will continue to apply their market leading sustainability initiatives from calendars to the new notebooks. This includes using FSC paper and reducing the use of plastic as much as possible. Carousel Worldwide were pleased to be recognised by the Products of Change Licensing Sustainability Awards 2023 for their environmental efforts, which they continue to hone and improve. The range has been developed initially for our international retailers and for the moment is not available within the UK.

Carousel Worldwide Acquires US Calendar Publisher Gladstone Media

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Carousel Worldwide Acquires US Calendar Publisher Gladstone Media

Carousel Worldwide, the UK’s leading calendar publisher, distributor and licensee, is delighted to announce the acquisition of US-based publisher Gladstone Media.

Gladstone Media, under Leonard Phillips and based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, has been a highly regarded publisher since 1995. Specialising in distinctive, high quality and creative calendars, they have always had and will continue to have a unique place within the dated market. 

Carousel Worldwide has been expanding their distribution worldwide, particularly in the US, so welcomed this opportunity to acquire Gladstone Media. Both companies share very similar values with design, spectacular imagery and stunning photography, as well as having environmental and sustainability issues at the heart of all products. This has helped to make the whole process of integration as smooth as possible, to continue delivering the highest quality calendars to all our customers.

This move supports Carousel’s growth within the US and its imminent launch of the Carousel Worldwide brand. 

Carousel Worldwide is in the unrivalled position of being part-owned by Calendar Club US, who, with the Go! Retail and www.calendars.com brands, is the largest US calendar retailer. 

The extensive years of experience within the dated market will ensure Carousel Worldwide’s dominant position within the market, as well as the continuing presence of a highly regarded brand such as Gladstone Media.

Leonard Phillips:

“It’s been a long, strange trip from the single title Gladstone Media began with in 1995, to the scores of titles we now produce. It is difficult to let go, yet I am honored and excited to pass the reins to Carousel Worldwide. Steve has been great throughout the acquisition process, and we at Gladstone Media look forward to the support, scale and worldwide reach that comes with joining the team at Carousel.”

Steve Plackett, Managing Director Carousel Worldwide:

“This is an exciting and significant step in our international growth. Gladstone’s unique range of calendars is very complementary to our own range, and it’s been a pleasure to work with Leonard in order to make this happen.”

Gideon Schlessinger, CEO Calendar Club USA:

“We are delighted to welcome Gladstone to our business and portfolio. Leonard has consistently been one of the industry’s most innovative publishers, always bringing interesting and often fun, fresh content to the Gladstone titles. We have loved Gladstone as a supplier and know we will love the brand as a part of the family.”

New and Updated Carousel Calendar Titles for 2025

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New and Updated Carousel Calendar Titles for 2025

Royal Ballet – Wall and A5 Dlx Diary – NEW LICENCE
New for 2025 is an exciting new partnership with the internationally renowned Royal Ballet and Opera House, which will produce a photo-led deluxe diary and wall calendar, showcasing visually stunning imagery from the company.

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – A3 Family Organiser – NEW LICENCE
This classic award-winning British children’s book written by Michael Rosen is a firm favourite with children and parents and has been for many years. The A3 family organiser it will help and bring joy to all families going on their own “Bear Hunt” throughout the year.

Flower Fairies – Slim – NEW LICENCE
First published in 1923 by Cicely Mary Baker, these images continue to delight both adults and children everywhere. The imagery and its botanically accurate drawings are simply enchanting, with the fairies based on real children.

Pin Ups – Fiona Stephenson – Wall – NEW LICENCE
Carousel’s Pin Up range has grown worldwide over the last few years; as a result we have added the talented Fiona Stephenson to the line up, who has been creating her very own playful pin up girls for many years. The tasteful, clean and fresh approach will add fun and colour to any wall.

Emma Bridgewater – Dates, Dinners and Dog walks – WTV Organiser – NEW TITLE
A new addition to one of our most popular licences is the Dates, Dinners and Dog Walks title. Carousel have combined Emma’s charming dog illustrations, which covers many breeds, with our ever-popular week-to-view wire bound wall format. The title is designed as a very helpful organiser for the entire family – including dogs!

Guinness – Guinness Firsts – Wall – NEW TITLE
Guinness have been achieving ‘firsts’ ever since the world-famous Irish Stout was created in 1759. This beautiful calendar with stunning imagery is testament to all those firsts over the brand’s long history and will appeal to all Guinness lovers and new fans alike.

WWF – Entire Range – NEW LOOK
We have been working with this eminent worldwide organisation for many years and we are delighted to showcase our new look range for 2025. Along with this, we have added a new Pandas title; as the WWF’s logo it was an easy decision. The range refresh will help put the focus even more on animals, birds and wildlife and assist WWF’s efforts in the conservation and the challenges of global warming.

Breathe
Take a deep, cleansing breath with these products from the partnership between Breathe Magazine, the original mindfulness magazine that provides a body-and-soul guide to being happier and healthier, and Carousel Calendars. Combined with colourful, inspirational images, these calendars offer snippets of wisdom to bring mindfulness to daily lives.

English Heritage
Following a successful first year, we are continuing our exciting partnership with English Heritage, who seeks to care for historical and notable locations and foster an appreciation of the country’s past. The range showcases beautiful photographs of the country’s famous landmarks and treasures in a comprehensive array of formats, including walls, minis and diaries.

Yearly Round Up for Carousel Calendars

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Yearly Round Up for Carousel Calendars

It has been another busy year for Carousel Calendars.

Our UK business is as strong as ever and we continue to develop the range by working with leading brands and increasing our photographic calendars.

Our local view (Regional) range is easily the UK’s largest range of regional calendars featuring over 250 cities, counties, areas of special interest and national parks, from Ireland to the Norfolk Broads, Scottish lochs and mountains to the south Devon coast, and much, much more.

We thank our customers, our artists and brand partners for all their loyal support.  Without them, we could not maintain such a varied range of calendars.

As well as constantly developing our range of products for the UK, we’ve also been growing our overseas business. We aspired to £500k of international business 5 years ago, and then had a target of £1 million, and we’ve now exceeded that with sales to international customers exceeding £1.1 million this year.

For 2024, international sales will exceed £2.4 million.

FACTS & FIGURES

  • 1,083 Calendars & diary titles sold this year across the world.
  • 6 million units sold, across the world.
  • 130 own brand titles are published for charity, grocers, high-street and international customers.
  • £1.1 million insales to international customers.

Carousel Calendars Breaks into the US Licencing Market with The New York Botanical Garden

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Carousel Calendars Breaks into the US Licencing Market with The New York Botanical Garden

Carousel Calendars is very pleased to announce a new partnership for 2024 with The New York Botanical Garden.

This is an exciting new opportunity for the Exeter-based calendar makers, as it is their first licence taken in the United States, and one that is specifically for the US. They are delighted to be working with such a renowned institution as the NYBG and to use their extensive and historic collection to produce beautiful bespoke products.

As market leaders in plastic-free packaging innovations, Carousel Calendars will be bringing their expertise to produce environmentally friendly products that complement the NYGB’s sustainability commitments.

Carousel Calendars has a wealth of experience not only with dated product but also with florals and botanical content, both photographic and illustrated, having formed partnerships with several similarly eminent horticultural organisations and charities in the UK. They also have experience working with national destinations and tourist locations like the NYBG.  

The range of calendars and diaries will display striking imagery from the NYBG, combined with Carousel Calendars’ spacious grids and layouts.

New Lifestyle Products from Carousel Calendars

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New Lifestyle Products from Carousel Calendars

New Partnerships and Innovative New Formats for 2024

Guinness 
A new partnership between Carousel Calendars and global brand Guinness, a drink ‘adored on all four corners of the earth’, sees a selection of bespoke products that are sure to appeal to any fans of this historic and unique brand.

New York Botanical Gardens 
A very exciting new licence for 2024 is with the world-famous New York Botanical Garden. Working together with this highly regarded organisation has produced a range of beautifully designed calendars and diaries that showcase the stunning imagery from the NYBG. This is a thrilling new opportunity for the Exeter-based calendar makers, as it is their first licence taken in the United States, and one that is specifically for the US. They are delighted to be working with such a renowned institution as the NYBG and to use their extensive and historic collection to produce beautiful bespoke products.

© Artwork by John Gilroy

Birthdays Calendars – Emma Bridgewater and Jo Grundy
New from Carousel Calendars for 2024 are two very charming perpetual birthday and special occasion calendars, one designed for Emma Bridgewater using her iconic and instantly-recognisable patterns, and one for the National Trust featuring Jo Grundy’s delightful artwork. These products are designed to be used year after year, so all family and friends’ birthdays, special occasions and anniversaries will never be forgotten.

English Heritage 
This comprehensive new collection, offered in a wide variety of formats, is part of a new, exciting partnership between Carousel Calendars and English Heritage, the eminent organisation that seeks to care for historical and notable locations and foster an appreciation of the country’s past. The range showcases beautiful photographs of the country’s famous landmarks and treasures.

A Healthier, Happier 2024

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A Healthier, Happier 2024

New Wellbeing Calendars from Carousel Calendars

Breathe 
Take a deep, cleansing breath with these products from the new partnership between Breathe Magazine, the original mindfulness magazine that provides a body-and-soul guide to being happier and healthier, and Carousel Calendars. Combined with colourful, inspirational images, these calendars offer snippets of wisdom to bring mindfulness to daily lives.

The Happiness Club 
What if you could boost your happiness and feel more uplifted, motivated and inspired every day? The Happiness Club was born out of a passion to achieve this! Carousel Calendars has teamed up with these happiness spreaders to scatter joy even further through a new wall calendar and diary, which combine inspiring artwork and positive quotes with effective prompts and techniques to help people get more out of each day.

My Ultimate List – Wall & Box.  
Let the adventures begin! Designed to help plan the ultimate bucket list, this new wall calendar and box calendar present stunning imagery from worldwide destinations, combined with ideas for experiences of a lifetime. Sections throughout the calendar allow people to note down their own ideas, inspired by the suggestions, to put together their ‘ultimate list’ and create their own personal goals.

Welcome to the New Carousel Calendars Website!

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We are pleased to welcome you to the new and improved Carousel Calendars website!

Our new-look website contains all of the information you need about our publishing, distribution and licensing services, as well as in depth details about all of our very important sustainability and environmental commitments.

If you are looking for particular department or staff contact details, please see our Contact page, or use the form on that page to contact us for more general enquiries.

If you are a photographer looking to submit images for consideration of use in our products, you can sign up using the form on this page.

Our new website is designed to be more responsive and easier to navigate, as well as providing more of the information you need to make informed decisions about our products and services, whether you are a brand looking to form a licensing partnership with us, a retailer who distributes our products, or a customer looking for details about how to recycle our calendars and diaries.

Carousel Calendars’ Commitment to The Environment

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Sustainability is a hot topic at the moment, and for a calendar-making company that uses a large volume of materials to create their products, it something at the forefront of our minds at Carousel Calendars.

Using recyclable materials, reducing independence on plastics – we are making commitments to do better here, as well as continuing to uphold our high standards in regards to ethical trading and the use of FSC paper.

Reducing Plastic Usage

Reducing the use of plastics, particularly single-use plastics, is something that all companies need to be looking at. Our products use polypropylene (PP) or polyethylene (PE), both of which are currently accepted in many recycling centres, but our key goal is to reduce the use of packaging entirely. We are working on products that use no plastic packaging, and these 2020-dated titles were launched in January 2019 at the NEC Spring Fair. Titles that will be available as plastic-free will include the new Sea Change title, selected Emma Bridgewater and National Trust products and the WWF Amazing Species wall calendar.

As a further example of our commitment to reducing plastic, for 2020 we removed all plastic from our boxed calendars – doing so resulted in an amazing overall reduction of over 4,000kg, which is about the same weight as three and a half average-sized cars!

Our ultimate aim is to make all of our packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 or earlier.

Ethical Trading

Ethical trading and the environmental performance of the suppliers that we use is something that we care about deeply, and have focused considerable effort on this, seeking to uphold standards as we work on a global scale to produce our products. Our policy is to only work with suppliers that have been through a two-pillar SMETA audit and our own personal audit. The SMETA audit is an expected standard, but it only provides us with a snapshot in time, whereas conducting our own means we can see everything first hand, and in knowing our business well we know what issues and problems to be aware of.

Responsibly Sourced Paper

Paper for 95% of our products is sourced from FSC accredited suppliers. We completed our first timber tracker document in 1996, after the 1995 Plus Group was formed by some key UK high street retailers. It used to be exceedingly hard to get information on paper from the mills and pulp suppliers, but the global acceptance of FSC standards since means that FSC pulp is available in most print centres around the world and there is rarely a reason not to use FSC accredited papers. Our products all bear a label on the back showing their FSC accreditation, and we will seek to add additional information to our products about the sustainability of all that we sell, so customers can always make an informed purchase.

We are committed to doing better in terms of our impact on the environment and are honest about the areas where we need to improve. But through research, trial and error, and listening to feedback from clients and customers, we are hopeful that we can play our part in protecting the future of the planet.

New Products and Ranges for 2021

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New Products and Ranges for 2021

National Geographic

Carousel Calendars and National Geographic are in their third year of partnership and for 2021 there will be more new titles, new formats, the range will be extended into new countries, including France, Norway, Spain and the Netherlands. An A5 diary and a new 59 X 48cm large scale format will be added to offer fresh and attractive new options. Up to 15 extra titles will join the current range, to offer over 30 different titles in total, focusing on National Geographic’s strong animal and landscape imagery.

National Trust

Continuing their partnership with eminent conservation charity National Trust, for 2021 Carousel Calendars will be extending an already successful range, with the addition of a box desk calendar, A5 diary, midi illustrated diary and two new wall titles, ‘Nature’ and ‘Gardens’ as well as refresh for the popular family organiser. The collection features beautiful photos of National Trust properties, as well as information about their vital work, and it continues to be a popular purchase.

Becky Bettesworth Devon & Cornwall

Becky Bettesworth’s charming seaside art, boasting a style reminiscent of vintage travel posters, has produced some popular products during her partnership with Carousel Calendars. As such, for 2021, the range is expanding further, with the addition of an A4 calendar featuring delightful nostalgic images of Devon and Cornwall. 

Liverpool Memories

Carousel Calendars’ regional range has grown year on year, to now provide the largest regional collection available in the UK. For 2021, their Memories selection is welcoming a new addition, the Liverpool Memories A4 calendar, which showcases wonderfully nostalgic images from the past century, depicting how much – or how little – has changed in the intervening years.