A business started by two Bradford College art and design graduates is celebrating its 25th anniversary and now sells its wares worldwide.

Pink Pineapple, based in a converted Victorian school in Heaton, supplies greetings cards, T-shirts and craft items to retailers in countries such as Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia and France. Greetings cards are translated into a variety of languages.

The business was founded by husband and wife Peter and Michelle Clark-Evans who both graduated from Bradford College in 1988. The couple originally specialised in screen printed textiles.

Pink Pineapple’s home-grown designs range from sparkly cherub ribbons to ‘keepsake hoodies’.

Now the couple have been approached by the Natural History Museum to supply items for its shop and online retailing.

Peter said: “We started off printing fabric, but found it too competitive. We were approached by the Bradford Festival team to print T-shirts, and that got us going. We designed festival T-shirts for several years after that.”

The Pink Pineapple name comes from screen prints of fruit that Michelle created at college. She is still responsible for most of the designs, while their children, Phoebe, Scarlet and Reuben, also provide inspiration.

“They’re pretty creative, they come up with ideas,” Mr Clark-Evans said. “We ask their friends what styles they’re into, it’s useful to have that feedback for designing children’s items”

“People like using our motifs to create names or slogans. We’ve brought out ‘colour me in’ aprons, T-shirts and bags which we sell with fabric pens, they’re proving popular. Our range of iron-on alphabet letters go down well too.”

As trends have changed Peter and Michelle have seen a rise in online retailing. Mr Clark-Evans said: “We sell a lot online and we have stalls at fairs and trade shows too. Our materials are all produced in the UK – our boxes are made in Yorkshire – and we come up with all the designs and package everything here.”

With a staff of six, the business has survived the recession. “We set up on a shoestring and 25 years later here we are,” said Mr Clark-Evans. “We’re constantly evolving and coming up with new ideas. We have regular staff meetings to get the consensus on new products and designs.

“We’re a leading light in card design in the UK, and we’re keen to expand on that internationally. ”

The couple work with schools on designing mementos for school-leavers. Pink Pineapple also designs T-shirts for clubs and dance schools. Other products include keepsake boxes and photo albums; glittery number motifs for children’s bedrooms; ‘Poptastic’ greetings cards bearing cartoons of pop acts like Abba and Spice Girls; and special occasion cards with fairy and champagne glass charms.