Quit Screwing Around with Business Cards
Business cards are a staple of every industry. Whether it is the local McDonald’s manager or Mark Zuckerberg, everyone in the professional world has or should have a business card. From that necessity, different creative “styles” of business cards have come out — and they need to stop.
Business cards came out of a necessity — the iconic IOU. In the late 16th century in France and England, the “bearer card” was born. The bearer card was originally made of playing cards was were signed and written on to write down a debt or a other different obligations. As time passed, the bearer card evolved to the visiting card. The visiting card was created to allow servants to introduce their master to other servants or people they were meeting. These were extremely popular in France and China in the 17th century. Typically, the cards would include a signature, coat or arms, or even a motif. Somehow from this noble beginning we got to this..

It doesn’t only stop there. Imagine a business card that folded into a little chair for dolls…

Business cards have gotten out of hand and they need to stop. For example, this shuriken is very difficult to read and doesn’t fit well in a wallet. The chair can only be read if you unfold the chair and can solve the puzzle. The goal isn’t to see if your client can twist his head while reading or unfold a char to get a phone number, but instead to get conversions. By conversions, I mean connecting the reader to the business. As a professional community, we all need to make a conscious effort to avoid going too far “outside of the box.” Create that converts and doesn’t confuse.

Rant ended.
