Who?

Caretcake is owned by Field15, Inc., and operated by Catharine and Dave Rankin.

Catharine has been involved in some form of graphic design since the early 90's, but professionally she's been everything from a newspaper editor to a Capitol Hill reporter to a web designer to a creative director. She's always had a deep love of animals, though, and that has definitely become a focus over the years...in fact, right now she has two cute little monsters, two owls, a snail, an elephant, and a fuzzy clock with ears sitting on her desk. She hasn't been able to fit too many characters in her client projects, though, so expect to see quite a few on Caretcake. Other than graphic design, Catharine really enjoys vegan baking (and eating), getting out of Brooklyn on occasion to see a different type of wildlife, and daydreaming about far-flung vacations.

Dave has been developing software professionally for over thirteen years, but he's been playing around on computers since the early 80's.  He's worked in a large number of technologies and languages ranging from the very high to the very low, but over the last couple of years, he's been gravitating mostly toward Python.  Dave also enjoys trying to make electronic music in FL Studio and hopes to put together an album for Caretcake someday.  When he's not on the computer, Dave is an avid amateur bee researcher, and he's recently developed a strong interest in cephalopods as well. In his downtime, Dave is obsessed with all things British but particularly enjoys BBC mystery series ranging from Inspector Lynley and Inspector Lewis to Midsomer Murders.

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What?

Caretcake is just a front! If you've already looked around our store, you may have noticed that our products are not actually for sale through this website itself. There is no Caretcake warehouse or manufacturing plant; there are no elves in a Caretcake workshop. We've carefully chosen select manufacturing partners to produce, sell, and distrubute our merchandise.  So, when you click the "buy" button on any product page, you're actually taken to the vendor's website who will complete the purchase.  All of our products are sold online only right now, but we're hoping to get into retail stores someday, too.  

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Where?

Our headquarters and the vast majority of our products are born in Brooklyn, NY. To be fair, though, some products and product ideas have come from friends and family in other parts of the country and world, and since everything is sold online anyway, maybe the only "where" is everywhere or nowhere in particular? 

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When?

The idea for Caretcake started to take form sometime in 2007, but it took us several years to find the time, energy, and focus to begin making it a reality. Caretcake officially opened to the public on Cyber Monday, November 28, 2011. 

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Why?

After thirteen years in web and software development and graphic design for corporations and the Federal government, Caretcake owners, Catharine and Dave Rankin, decided to take a break from the demands of deadlines and stress of sales by focusing on something lighter and more frivolous...toys for techies.  Call them what you want — geeks, nerds, programmers, hackers, developers, designers or, if you're particularly sophisticated, knowledge workers — it really doesn't matter, because they're all welcome here!  Caretcake is a collection of clothes, home goods, music, software, and more designed by and for people who work in technology, love technology, or maybe just know and love people who know and love technology.

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