So I’ve been using, wrongly, cards for the last half a year which stated I was still a student, oops! I am doing this kind of last minute – I was recommended Moo.com – so I thought why not. I can think of some interesting card backs to use right? π
I decided on the front, the easy part, I’d do the two logos on the right – my own very simple AA one, and the IGDA Game Preservation SIG logo. This coupled with my contact information (ie; this website). Here is the front in all it’s glory:
As for the backs, that was the harder decision. There are a few things I decided to do:
- Raid my photos for some interesting videogame (especially game preservation) related ones
- Check what pictures I have downloaded that inspired me to save them in the first place – there were more then I thought (but 50 is a rather large number)
- Add some other random ones in the mix (not specifically videogame related pictures or photos in the first place)
I added a simple text caption of my thoughts onto the pictures – I did try and do the full 50, but I forgot a few important things (which I didn’t want to go back and fix):
- Cropping will occur – make sure there is whitespace around the edge of the image (which I just couldn’t be bothered to redo for many images – some were much too long or simply not big enough to work) or make sure you are using a large picture
- Fitting text into some pictures is not possible, aesthetically – and some I did use eventually fails at this a bit
- Having a second chance to look at what you are going to put on cards you’ll give to people is important π There are some I cut from this
A mix of these reasons made me cut it down to around 37 designs, mainly the cropping and size issues (it was late when I eventually finished, ouch what an evening). I did end up with a few more unreadable ones (or perhaps just cleverly hidden π ). They’re all in this gallery, including the lot I didn’t use:
And the final result (Moo do sure like to make it all pretty):
I think next time I get some printed (I got 200 from Moo) I will see what people think of these. Since I am no artist, and not a very good photographer (I need to get a better camera for starters that can deal with low light and taking pictures of screens), I did source most of them from the web in one form or another. Too clichΓ©? too derivative? too copyright infringing? too self-indulgent? not witty enough? Who knows what people will think, to be honest! At least they’re much more exciting then my last batch which was entirely black. Next time I might also have some more interesting game development screenshots to use. π
Also one last final point:
- Business card printing prints much, much much darker then what you see on any screen.
Luckily only one of mine was really affected, but it does show using just black or white text helps π
as someone who does a lot of hiring, i would suggest removing “aspiring” from the AI line. it is not my intention to offend you, but to help you (assuming you intend to use these cards to find a job). frankly, when somebody reads that, it’s possible for them to read it as “wanna be”, completely negating the positive connotation of “aspiring”. i think it’s an unnecessary risk.
Yeah, it has disadvantages to be honest, but a few places recommended it over just putting AI programmer (since I don’t do that as a job right now!) – since I currently work in IT and don’t intend to apply for any jobs right this minute, it’ll do until GDC next year – when I will be removing that part of it for sure π
Thanks a lot for the tip though, I will sort it on any future cards.