Card - Ream of Paper Birthday Card

After a cancer diagnosis, founder, Emily McDowell, learned that sometimes people drift away simply because they don’t know what to say. She also learned that there wasn’t a huge supply of greeting cards available that spoke authentically to complex or nontraditional life experiences. So in 2012 she started writing and illustrating her own cards, reflecting her real, complicated life—like Valentines for people who are kinda ambiguously dating, Mother’s Day cards for people who aren’t technically your mom, and cards for seriously ill people who might find “get well” messages awkward at best.

At Em & Friends, they make cards and products for the relationships people really have and the lives we really lead: relationships and lives that are messy and beautiful, tricky and wonderful, and a whole bunch of everything else in between.