Em & Friends

Em & Friends, originally known as Emily McDowell Studio, is the stationery brand I founded in 2012, when I couldn't find cards that reflected my actual life. As of 2022, I am no longer with the company.

I launched the brand on Etsy, added wholesale in May 2013, and within a year, we were in thousands of retailers, and I was furiously dog-paddling in the deep end of entrepreneurship. Em & Friends is best-known for Empathy Cards, a more honest and supportive alternative to traditional sympathy cards, which became a worldwide news story and inspired a shift in the greeting card industry as a whole in 2015.

Until 2018, I was the author and artist behind all Em & Friends’ products (with a small handful of exceptions), and hundreds of pieces of my work are still in print as bestselling greeting cards, journals, and other things. In 2018, following our company merger with Knock Knock, we began transitioning the brand’s execution to a creative team under my direction, as well as developing and publishing collections by outside authors and artists.

In 2022, both Em & Friends and Knock Knock were acquired by Union Square & Co., the publishing division of Barnes & Noble, and I parted ways with the company.

In January 2025, Em & Friends was sold by B&N to publishing giant Hachette along with Knock Knock and Union Square & Co. I don’t know what the future holds for it, and I’m OK with that; I feel complete with this chapter of my life. I’m extremely grateful for the entire experience, to all the wonderful people who worked alongside me to make it all happen, and to all our retailers and customers and fans for their support.