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Designing cards reflecting diversity
Published November 23, 2007
LOGANVILLE — All it took was a $5 camera and a dream and Robin McNeil of Loganville was on her way to the job of a lifetime — owner of her own business.
McNeil, a former federal special-agent for the Environmental Protection Agency, said it began five years ago when she went looking for her husband’s first Father’s Day card.
“I wanted a card from my daughter with an image that looked like her father,” McNeil said. “I went to the local Wal-Mart and there were plenty of Father’s Day cards — but none that looked like her father.”
McNeil, who is black, said no matter where she looked she couldn’t find a card that gave a clear reflection or image she felt comfortable giving her husband as a Father’s Day card from his daughter.
“There just weren’t any with images of African-Americans, so I came home and handmade one myself,” McNeil said. “On it I put the words ‘Mommy and I searched for a card for you, but none of them said what I wanted them to. They all had some strange guy on the cover, who looked nothing like my daddy or my mother.’”
McNeil, who now has two daughters — Jessica and Kennedy — became a full-time stay-at-home mom. But she always had in the back of her mind that there was a gap in the card market for blacks.
So about two years ago, with a camera her brother in-law had purchased for $5 at a yard sale some years before, a love of writing and creativity and a dream to help others also find that perfect card, she set about taking pictures and making up cards to fill that gap.
“I wanted people to see positive images of African Americans and to understand what we are all so much more alike than we are different — to see that we also pull our children along in wagons or walk with them through fields of flowers,” McNeil said. “I also wanted to give African Americans the opportunity to feel good about themselves — to know that not only is it OK to be African-American — it’s awesome to be African-American.”
McNeil said all the photos on the cards are originals, many of them with her children and family members as models.
She still uses the $5 Nikon camera that started it all and has the photos developed at local stores such as Wal-Mart. McNeil she doesn’t know how the photos come out as well as they do because she’s never had any formal training.
“They are just as much a surprise to me,” McNeil said. “I take it as a gift from God. I think this is what I’m meant to do.”
McNeil said she takes many of the images from the back so people from other ethnic groups who might have difficulty finding images in their likeness can imagine themselves in the picture scene.
“I think this gives me an opportunity to bring people together and show how alike we are more than it points out our differences,” McNeil said.
McNeil sells her cards on the Internet and at some outdoor markets like Atlantic Station. Now going into the second year of production, McNeil is seeing an upswing in business.
She said she still makes up the cards at home but would be happy if the business expanded enough to allow her to be a larger player in the card business, which is a $7.6 billion industry.
Anyone wanting to see some of McNeil’s cards can go to the Web site at http://www.reflectionsofus.net.
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