A postcard signed by the whole family, without the roll call at the end
Published on 12 September 2026 · 3 min read
A holiday postcard for the grandparents, a note from the team for the colleague who's leaving, the birthday card "from all of us": very often a postcard doesn't have one author but four. And that's where it goes wrong. One person writes three polite lines, passes the card round, and everyone adds "love!" and their name. The result: a message that belongs to nobody, followed by a list of signatures that looks like it came off an attendance sheet. It can be done better, and it doesn't take any longer.
One pen, several voices
Pick a writer, whoever enjoys it, and make them the conductor rather than the sole author. Their job: go round the table before writing a single line. "What do you want to tell Granny?" Everyone answers with whatever comes to mind, and that's precisely what makes the card: "tell her I swam out to the buoy" is worth a thousand "thinking of you". The writer then stitches it together, keeping everyone's words and saying who's speaking: "Theo wants you to know he swam out to the buoy. Dad burnt the sausages, as usual. As for me, I think of you every time we walk past the bakery." Three sentences, three people, and the card breathes.
One sentence each, not one line each
If you'd rather everyone writes in their own hand (and it's worth it when there are children), set the rule first: one sentence per person, a real one, with a verb and a detail. Not "kisses", not "see you soon". The youngest, who can't write yet, draws a sun, a boat, a heart, and someone writes their name next to it. On a card sent from your phone it's even easier: everyone dictates their sentence, you type, and you can keep the way each person talks, in their own words. The order matters: start with the children, finish with the adults. The last sentence, the one that gets re-read, deserves to be the most tender.
Sign like a family, not like a register
The signature is where it all plays out. "Mark, Julie, Theo and Lou" in a row is a noticeboard. Try a line that says the bond instead: "Your four Cornwall campers", "Everyone at number 12", "The second floor, who'll miss you from Monday". The names stay, but they follow the line, in brackets or underneath, and they're no longer the main thing. For a card from colleagues, keep one line for the boss's word, one for the in-joke and one for the sincere bit: the three registers together on ten centimetres of card is exactly what a leaving do deserves.
The best time to write together is the evening, when everyone is still at the table and the photo of the day is already on your phone. You choose it together, go round, type, and the card is printed in premium quality and posted with our next dispatch (there's at least one a week), from €2.49 all in. Granny will get four voices on a single card. Which is exactly what she was hoping for.