When Kat French talks about how she got started, it’s refreshingly honest: “It kind of accidentally happened.”
She was running a freelance graphic design business, raising little ones, and trying to figure out how to make work fit around family. “I began experimenting with designing a product line that could generate perpetual income while allowing me to be a full-time mom and artist on the side.” No big launch plan, no pressure to go viral—just a desire to keep creating and make it work.
That early experiment became Kat French Design, a line of illustrated cards, stickers, and prints that are equal parts heartfelt and funny. Her business name is exactly what it sounds like—“my name + design”—and while she says she wishes she’d played with it more at the beginning, it fits the brand’s unfiltered charm perfectly.
Kat’s creative rhythm doesn’t look like the typical “daily drawing practice” kind of thing. “I really only sit down to illustrate a few times a year,” she says. “It’s like a drawing retreat in my own studio.” She collects ideas in a never-ending note on her phone, pulling from everyday moments—car rides, showers, mental snapshots—until the timing feels right. Then it’s go time for a few weeks, followed by a break. “I don’t know how I got into this rhythm, but it works.”
One of her most meaningful pieces is a grief card with tiny bugs huddled under a mushroom in the rain. “It was birthed out of feeling incredible grief over a situation that had happened, but I felt far removed from,” she says. “I penned the words ‘grieving with you’ on it in an almost cathartic act.” It’s become a card people really connect with—simple, real, and full of empathy.
Sustainability shows up in quiet but consistent ways across her work. She reuses shipping materials, designs marketing pieces that double as art prints, and loves giving old things new life—“About 95% of the furniture in my house is secondhand,” she says. Thrifting was a tradition she picked up from her mom, and it still shapes how she shops today.
Running a business while raising kids has had its challenges, but early on, Kat made a decision that’s shaped everything since: slow growth. “It can be hard to see other companies on social media that seem to explode overnight,” she says. “But allowing myself to take it one day at a time helped me hunker down. I think making that decision over 8 years ago is what has kept me in it to this day.”
That kind of perspective is something we love at Parker + Scott. Kat’s work isn’t loud or flashy—but it’s thoughtful, clever, and often just what someone needs to hear. Whether it’s a card that makes you laugh out loud or a quiet note of comfort, her illustrations have a way of saying the thing you didn’t know you needed.
You can follow along with Kat on Instagram at @katfrenchdesign. And keep an eye out—she’s got a new batch of bumper stickers in the works that are shaping up to be exactly what you’d expect from her: kind, quirky, and quietly hilarious.