Geeky Business Cards

Every now and then an idea will pop into my head that causes me to pause and think “that would be fun!”  These ideas vary wildly, from a hovercraft dog-bed styled like Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge for my dachshund… to a monetary system based entirely around Lego bricks as currency. Sometimes these ideas happen, while other times they get added to my possible projects list.

Often times I find myself at an in-between point with some of the larger projects I have going, and it’s at those very times that a smaller project like this is the perfect thing. Doesn’t require a lot of time, and is a fun trip down the rabbit hole.

At some point or another I got the idea to make geeky business cards for myself. I definitely remember thinking “that would be fun!”  I didn’t really formalize just what path the idea would take, but it definitely seemed like something fun to pursue. There are billions of business cards out there, and most of them are probably fairly boring. I have business cards for work, they have my name and they’re just dandy as work business cards. But… what if instead of having just work business cards I had day-to-day business cards too! Granted my day-to-day life outside of work is not really a business, so maybe they should have a totally different name, something that reflects that these cards are me, they display my randomness, they display me.

Seeing as how I had my heart set on this plan I set out to start working on creating geek/business-cards for myself. The first hurdle to overcome was Photoshop and the fact that I have zero graphic design background and am a total n00b when it comes to Photoshop. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me. So I started tinkering, playing around and learning as I went. Admittedly, I’m still a noob, but I managed to learn enough as I went to be able to create something fairly close to what I had imagined in my mind.

When I started this I planned on making maybe 3 or 4 designs and then picking the ones I liked best and having those printed. But…. as time went on I couldn’t seem to stop the deluge of fun ideas and things popping into my head. So 3-4 ended up soon being 7-8… and then 9 or 10. Before things were done I had made over 25 different designs. Needless to say things got a little away from me there for a while. These things happen though. After I finished with each design I found fonts that fit each theme and added my email to the back of the cards in the respective theme font, Blade Runner, Star Wars, SEGA, TMNT, etc.

In the end I narrowed it down to 15 designs I liked and had those printed out. I majorly lucked out that @thetinnishflash worked at a print shop and could print me the cards dirt cheap, like 75 cents for 10 cards of one design. So for all 15 designs I ended up with 10 of each design or 150 cards total and it only cost me $11.25. 🙂

When this whole geeky business card idea had first come up I never thought much of who I planned on giving them to. But when I started to get closer to actually having them I realized I could give them to anyone, didn’t matter who they were; new people you meet, friends, and family, whoever you want. Since I’m not really trying to sell anything and am just having fun it doesn’t really matter who you give them too.

I’ve already given almost all of them away, and people really seem to love them. The cards are excellent conversation starters. It’s been a fun little project and I’m reaping the rewards every time I give a card away and get to geekout with somebody about Blade Runner, TMNT, video games, Lego and all sorts of other geeky topics.

29.2k

13.2k

7.1k

2.1k

813

2.6k