Build 11/30: Unprofessional Business Cards

⊕ show captionAbout the TItle Picture I spent a good chunk of time in Affinity Designer figuring out how to design and print business cards on my laser printer.

On Sunday I went to my local farmer's market to drop off my temporary silly business card off at Emily's Refreshment stand. We talked about the fun part of finding resonant ideas in the design process, and listened to the song that Emily had picked as having "the vibe" she wanted to come from her business: Nappy Root's Good Day. I also shared my temporary cards which used the cat face mentioned on Build Day 10.

(I'm having qualities issues with my image plugin system, apologies for the fuzzy images)

Draft Round 1

⊕ show captionFigure 1. Round 1 Public Draft of Personal Cards

The first round of cards just had to have my email address and phone number so I could give them to people on the last day of the farmer's market. Emily and I had agreed that the design didn't have to be finished, and we could make it whatever as a first reaction draft.

I played with a number of colors trying to control the difficult background; on an actual card I'd want to draw something carefully rather than use my sloppy sketch notes. I also noted that I really didn't like the following text:

• "process dev and creative community" felt generic and distant
• "interactive design" and "productivity tools" were nominally accurate, felt flat

After the farmer's market I walked to the CosMom Conshop, where the owner David is also a graphic designer with pop culture sensitivities. He's also 20 years younger than me, so his feedback on the card was helpful. In particular, he said to that to non-business people they might guess I made websites, which isn't what I want to offer.

He also suggested trying a DARK background (2nd row, last card). He noted that some of the cards felt "technical" because of the blueprint-like qualities of the tinting (2nd row, middle), and the aged feeling from the sepiatone card (first row, middle).

Draft Round 2

I reminded myself to stay focused on my values-first approach this year, which is less about services for others and more about me forming good connections with like-minded nerdy creative people. However, I'm very much used to talking about what I do in the language of business justification and trying to be clear about what I could do.

I wanted to break from that completely, and have more of a calling cardSee A Guide to the Modern Letterpress Calling Card and Victorian Calling Cards about me, not the industries worked in.

After struggling with finding ways to use words like creative, enthusiastic, and community in a way that didn't sound forced, I thought of maybe using short verses that implied it. It would be whimsical and be a break from professional norms.

⊕ show captionFigure 2. Cards that use the new language and include a verse intended to imply creative community.

I came up with the following three verses

I liked how it told the story, and it sort of works with the sketchnote background. It implies that there's a gathering of creative people (community) that follow a process (my ELBS process, in fact) and that there's an emergent joy that produceds stuff (building together).

Next, I needed to fix the terms "investigative designer" and "interactive developer" so they matched with the sentiment expressed by the verse. I used adjectives that describes how I liked to interact with others:

I'm at the point now, though, of thinking the verse is too cutesy but that might be what I should be embracing. It occurred me that for now I could get awy with the plain vertical card (last row, right), and that the "cheerful designer chatty programmer" adequate takes the professional services edge away.

I'll print out a few of these to trial over the next few weeks, and think more about the story/verse aspect.

BUILD CHALLENGE COMMENTARY

I spent a good chunk of the weekend doing business card layout stuff, digging up my old card templates for the laser printer. I wasn't familiar what Affinity Designer could do with regards to layer effects, so that require ramp-up time.

I may have spent too much time on this activity. If I ask myself, "Does making business cards directly create revenue-generating goods that establish my business pratice", the answer is a big fat "NOT REALLY". I'll lay this design to rest for now and use the vertical card blanks for now, and move forward.

One issue: I spent a big chunk of time this weekend on this, and as a result I'm not very well rested today. I hope this doesn't bite me in the ass.

BONUS ACHIEVEMENTS

I am feeling more at home with Affinity Designer, and I would say I can effectively use it for making forms now. However, it seems to lack precision due to the way handles mouse input. I'm constantly looking for problems in the visual layout.

It's been good to really get deeper into the design work, making business cards and assembling layouts, as it's putting me back into the "designer headspace". It's also been good for remembering how to organize projects so I can return to them. This includes where to store files, naming conventions, sharing assets between projects, and so on.