Broken Hearts Will Mend

Sometimes, life can be a hard romance. The Brokenhearted series deals with exactly that. Designed by Antti Bergman, the character-based line-up features cartoon-inspired hearts in different stages of dealing with heartache.

“The series started a single design: a wailing heart, accompanied by the “Life is a Hard Romance” slogan. People liked it a lot, and soon other prints followed,” Bergman tells.

While some prints are based purely on design, some prints have another layer to them. The Brokenhearted series belongs to the latter category – the catalyst for the print family came from Bergman’s personal life. In 2022, life threw an unexpected hurdle at him: a heart attack. As life-altering events often do, this forced Bergman to put things in a new perspective. And some of that larger reassessing-of-things was poured into print.

“The first print was a more character-based endeavor. But as I continued the work, the series became also an outlet for reflection. Because during that time, I had to reconsider many things – and also reassess what having a thing like ‘heart’ actually means to me. Even though the topic is serious, I wanted to keep the designs light-hearted. To me, the message is positive: whatever life throws at you, there’s only way through, and that’s forward.  All you can do is just keep going and trust that in the end, things will turn out all right.”

At the moment, the Brokenhearted line-up consists of three prints. But Bergman hints that there’s still one more to come.

“The heart is capable of many things: it can feel, break, and love. The final chapter for the series is a tribute to that – a full circle, in a sense.”