INSIDE THE ENVELOPE
With Cath Tate Cards
Cath Tate 1984
Rewind to the early 80's - Cath sat down at her kitchen table and began making political photomontages, fueled by her left-wing views. Inspired to shout about her favourite female cartoonists, who at the time were often underrepresented, Cath decided to start publishing their work on a selection of postcards - and Cath Tate Cards was born!
Cath Tate and Daughter Rosie
How do you find being a mother-daughter duo in business?
Aside from the occasional disagreement, working as a duo has been brilliant. Having grown up in a household where greeting card jokes we were always being tested on the family, our sense of humour has developed and merged over the years. Being in that environment gave Rosie an early insight into what jokes work. Cath now enjoys getting the perspective of a younger generation from Rosie when developing new ideas.
Lots of your cards involve humour, why do you think funny cards are so popular?
As two working mothers we’ve always believed that a sense of humour is essential for survival. Whether it’s making fun of your age, poking fun at the government, pet-themed humour and everything in between, sending a joke to your loved ones will never go out of style – we would know, we’ve been doing it for 40 years!
Do you have any interesting facts people may like to know about Cath Tate Cards?
1. Some cards feature our family photos, including one from Rosie’s wedding day
2. Some of our cards have been used as props in films, including Christmas fave The Holiday.
3. One of our cards was featured on an official Christmas edition Royal Mail stamp.
4. One of our first trade customers (who we still supply now!) was Gay’s The Word, the UK’s first LGBTQ+ bookshop, as featured in the film Pride.
5. In 2018 Cath was co-author of The Inking Woman, a book of comic art celebrating 250 years of female cartoonists!
6. We’ve heard (from a reliable source!) that the Queen Consort Camilla has sent one of our cards to all the members of her book club!
Does your team come up with the sentiments together? We’d love a little look inside how you come up with the quips on your cards!
We write most of our captions ourselves, with popular ranges like Life Is Rosie, Photocaptions, Photocats & Canines and Pina Colada all being written by Rosie and Cath, with a little help from our team.
The process typically involves lots of throwing ideas around, saving up ideas until the time feels right, bickering over the exact wording and voting as a team on which cards work best!
In recent years, we’ve collaborated with lots of talented illustrators and cartoonists – some of whom come up with their own captions, like the Terrific Humans range, and some who come up with the design while we write the captions, like the Modern Icons range.
The Current Cath Tate Team 2023
If you could share only one business tip you wish you’d known sooner what would it be?
Go for it! Don’t be afraid of trying things out at the risk of making mistakes. There’s always a solution and as long as you have a good product, the rest will follow!
Rosie and Team at PG Live in London 2023
This may be hard one, but answer if you can! Do you have an all time favourite card? Feel free to share a few options!
Fig. 1: Lady Legend from the Hot Foils range
Fig. 2: Princess and the Penis – funnily enough, this one never sold well, but it’s one of Rosie’s favourites regardless!
Fig. 3: However Hard You Try You End Up Like Your Mother, no explanation needed here!
Fig. 1: Lady Legend
Fig. 2: Princess and the Penis
Fig. 3. End up Like Mom