cards

Small cream business-sized card with 3 question marks printed in yellow, red and blue.. Next to it is the same card with the other side showing, with a QR code and the url www.whathappenedtoyou.co.uk - on a white wood background.

ABOUT

the cards

What if when someone asks “what happened to you?” you could hand them a card, linking to a website explaining why that isn’t a great question? That’s the idea behind all this.

Order the cards at Contrado (UK)

Or Etsy for US & elsewhere

Or download for free here

The card idea came from chatting to lots of other disabled people on Instagram – a way of subverting the expectation that we should ‘educate’. A card that – unlike the begging cards of 100 years ago – questions the question. That does the exact opposite of giving up our medical details, and explains why the question might be a problem.

So just a year or two later… we finally have a card.

A small cream business-sized card with 3 question marks printed in yellow, red and blue. With thanks to Karen George, illustrator of What Happened to You for the question marks.

A small cream business-sized card with a muted red QR code and the url www.whathappenedtoyou.co.uk - on a white wood background.

If you think this might be useful for you, you can order some cards from Contrado in the UK, or Etsy if you’re in the US or elsewhere – or download for free at the bottom of this page to print yourself.

But please take care – we can’t vouch for how people will react. If you think it might help – great. But we certainly don’t want to make anything harder. See the ‘about’ page for more thoughts on this.

We aren’t the first to think of a card – turns out Carly Findlay had some printed herself back in 2015.

And however you negotiate these situations, good luck – and wishing you all solidarity.

– Lucy and James Catchpole

Download the cards

Download the cards just below – front and back if you’re up to the challenge, or I’ve included a one-sided version.

I can’t pretend I’m a pdf / printing expert. Turns out both standard paper size and business card size are different in the UK and the US. So there’s an A4 size for the UK, and a separate one for the US. Do let us know if you have any suggestions – e.g. if an individual small png option would be easier.