Discover Wisdom and Wonder's Viral Art Prints
Relatable, witty (and maybe just a little bit naughty), we can't get enough of these viral prints
When Living North last spoke to Ellie Davidson she was running dog accessory business Happy Hound Accessories whilst living with numerous chronic health conditions. Since then, Ellie’s mum, who she ran the business alongside, has heartbreakingly been diagnosed with terminal cancer, resulting in the closure of Happy Hound. ‘I was going into the garden office to work on Happy Hound every day and it just felt really sad. It wasn’t a nice place to be,’ says Ellie. ‘I think it was time. I’d had that business eight years and a lot of customers were sad that it’s closing, but were excited to see what came next.’
What Ellie did next was Wisdom and Wonder Designs, selling prints and homeware all designed by her, alongside her husband Adam. The pair actually began the business on Etsy in 2019, but it was soon shelved due them not having enough time to dedicate to it, with Ellie working on Happy Hound and Adam having a nine-to-five job as a consultant engineer. In early 2024, Ellie decided to revamp and relaunch Wisdom and Wonder, which led to a sudden boom. ‘It was on TikTok really where we started going viral. That brought everyone back to Etsy and then over summer we made our own website,’ she says.
From there, the business has skyrocketed. They’ve had 70 million views on TikTok and have sold to every state in America. ‘We’ve sold to a huge amount of countries, as far as Trinidad and Tobago. We struggle to wrap our head around it really. We’re in the top one percent of shops on Etsy now,’ Ellie says.
‘One of the crazy things I can’t get my head around is that this year, we’ve sold more than 31,000 products. We even sell a lot to Germany and places where English isn’t even the first language,’ continues Adam.
Their text-based prints depict positive affirmations, as well as jokingly-pessimistic takes on mental health. ‘We’ve both struggled with our mental health so it’s a great stress release,’ Ellie explains. ‘We started quite positive, but the more viral we’ve gone, the more pessimistic the prints have become because that’s what people seem to like and relate to.’
‘It normalises it to say, “you’re not the only one who feels like this”. Not to make light or laugh about it, but just to say it’s there,’ says Adam.
Some of their most viral prints are those with more explicit messages. ‘What we’ve found is that the rude ones attract attention, but the nicer ones tend to sell more,’ says Adam.
‘We sell a huge mix of both,’ adds Ellie, ‘but when we’re posting nice, happy stuff it doesn’t get shared around as much.’
One of the best things about the business for the couple is that they’ve created it together. ‘We’ve actually achieved something great together and we do sit and think, “how have we managed to do this, and get so big so fast?”’ Ellie says. ‘We’ve struggled so much, and there’s been times where I’ve not known what to do or what the next step is, so it’s good to know that we’ve achieved this.’
Self-employment also means that Adam is able to support Ellie a lot more with her health conditions, and that they’re able to spend far more precious time with Ellie’s mum. ‘For her to sit and watch this happening is really big, and important for her to be able to see that we’re secure and capable. She’s very confident that if anything goes wrong, we’ll figure something out and we’ve proven that we can do that,’ says Ellie. ‘This business has given us the time to be with her, which is a huge luxury that many people don’t have.’
In the future, they hope to expand their product range and gain a following outside TikTok. ‘It would be nice to have a bit more of a local presence or following,’ says Adam. ‘With Happy Hound, Ellie had a local customer base and with this, it’s crazy how widespread it is, but we don’t have that same thing.’
Ellie does, however, stress that the business is still very new. ’We’re still scared every day that we won’t get the orders in and sometimes think, “what will we do next week if it all falls through?” We’ve not even had 12 months of this, but my head is bursting with ideas and luckily we’ve got so many things we want to do.’
