By their very nature business cards exist solely to “start something”: To start a relationship (business or otherwise), to start a conversation, or simply to start the recipient thinking in a different way. This week, pieces that start us rethinking what photographers’ cards should be, remembering what we’ve lost, and those that start…a fire? (Previous “Cool Cards of the Week” can be found here.)
Photographer’s Business Card
Brice Vandermeeren specializes in photographing artworks and architecture for antique shops, art galleries and auction houses, which means his card isn’t the usual mini-exhibition of glamor shots and touchy-feely scenes. Aiming for the upscale, Belgium’s InkStudio created a two-panel letterpress business card that folds down into the standard size. All black (with name and contact details in white ink on the inside), it features his initials embossed in a wax-seal-like design against a background of raised bumps – extremely tactile, effectively so.
Steve Jobs Business Card
The card that b-type design came up with to memorialize the Apple founder’s death is simple and to the point.
“The card was simply a show of respect for the passing of Steve Jobs,” b-type design director Alessandro Gugliotta tells PaperSpecs. “It was never used for personal or financial gain.
“It’s all laser cut. No inks, presses or die were used in the creation of the card. The material is Crescent Gray mat board, a medium-weight board that is 50% gray on one side and 80% gray on the other, and features the gray surface papers mounted on a solid black core.”
Fire-starting Business Card
What do you put on a business card for a company called Wildfire Experiential and Events? Why a stylized “W” that can create fire when struck with a match, of course. As Cameron McNab, art director for Vancouver marketing firm Cossette, told QZ.com:
“The business card was the result of many concepts—we tried paper, metal, plastic, die-cutting, laser cutting, embossing—and ultimately landed on an application of a transparent adhesive mixed with tiny grains to give it the rough, strikable surface that would ignite a match.”
