THE EVOLUTION OF MY BUSINESS/CONTACT CARD

This was my very first contact card. It was printed off on paper as an afterthought as I need something quick before I left for an event in Southampton where I would be showcasing my android chatbot app. I handed a great many of these out but have deliberately kept a few back to remind of an important lesson that day.

I learnt something very important at that event, and that was you don't have to have everything completely polished and complete. If you have a good idea and you're enthusiastic and have the right intentions, people won't mind receiving your details on a slither of paper.

It was time to get some proper cards made up though in time for my next event. As I try and achieve things for as less money as possible with whatever I do, I found an offer online for free business card sample packs and took advantage of it. For years now I've been branded with rockets, rusty rockets and have done ever since I chose my first Hotmail email address back in the late 90s. So with these cards I quickly put together a rocket logo for the front design.

The reverse of the card comprised of stamps with the idea of it looking similar to a postcard. The idea was that I would hand write my details on the 'postcard' with a little sentence about what we've been talking about to help jog peoples' memories when the find the card weeks or months down the line. This worked really well and I think people appreciated how different it was but it did take a lot of time the write out each one.

My next card design is still my favourite out of all these. By now my website that I display all my builds on was starting to develop a retro feel and the cassette tape featured rather heavily in the design layout. Again, finding an online offer for free sample packs of business cards I took full advantage of the cassette tape template this company offered and I was able to get a large quantity printed in a variety of cassette tape designs at a very low cost.

I loved how the reverse of the card resembled the inlay card of the case. Sadly no contact details printed (I think this came at a huge additional cost) so it was back to hand writing details and I got rather good at writing them out for people in the form of a track listing, as if I had made them a mix tape.

I have been using the cassette tape cards for a number of years now and I've only stopped using them as this particular template is no longer offered anymore. Never fear though, the 3d printer revolution is here! I've been experimenting with new contact cards with a difference and on finding a nice rocket kit template on Thingiverse I modified it so it could be used as a contact card. The idea is the parts all pop out to make a small model of a rocket.

This is a great idea but the actual rocket assembly proved very tricky, so I looked at ways of refining the rocket card kit and the below is the result - A more compact model that's easier to build.

These were going to be used at events this Easter and Summer but have unfortunately been cancelled due to everything going on in the world at the moment. They won't go to waste though, they can be saved until I'm next able to get out. In the meantime I've bought myself a cheap little thermal printer and I'm looking at way this could be used as a way to print out little receipt-like contact details for people, along with images and other fun things that could be included on their.

Take a moment to watch this little video of me talking about my contact cards some more.