With a launch date so close to Mother’s Day, it was obvious that some of our new designs should celebrate the occasion. Ask different people what they think of Mother’s Day, though, and you’ll unleash a wide range of strongly-held opinions.

This is what came up in conversations…

Our kickstarter not only gave us the funds to get our company going, but it also gave us the beginning of a fanbase - 240 people who have helped make Out of the Box Cards happen and who, we hope, will be our biggest champions. To say thank you, we invited them all to our launch this week and what a fantastic evening it was. We decked out the venue with poster-seized images of our newest designs, and set up a shop to showcase all our cards.

Take a look at the greeting cards designed for women and girls, and you’ll generally see a rather narrow range of themes. Pink predominates, of course, along with unicorns, mermaids, princesses and glitter. Girls on cards are often depicted as slim, white, blonde and without disabilities. Cards for women frequently feature flowers and shoes, assume that all of us are terrified of ageing and that we’re obsessed with wine.

Then take a look at the women and girls that you know and love in real life, and you’ll be struck at how different they are – to stereotypical norms as well as to each other.

With all that is happening in our world at the moment, why bother with something as insignificant as a greetings card? Creating a more equal society where everyone can thrive regardless of their sex, gender, or orientation requires massive change and concerted effort; the patriarchy is not going to smash itself. But that change needs to happen at lots of different levels – macro, micro and everything in between.