Down with Titles
Wednesday April 20, 2005 / 22 CommentsUnfortunately, all the information I have about these cards is in the comments on this page. Please don’t e-mail asking questions about the cards because I won’t be able to help. After reading the comments, you’ll know everything I know.
At SXSW, our Bright Corner business cards were received pretty well by everyone. After being inspired by Andy Budd’s What’s in a Name post, I thought I’d show off our cards. It’s not about bragging about the great ideas of my coworkers so much as showing our way of getting around titles.
The two sides to the card represent respectively each person as an individual with unique talents and the shared information of the company.
We Wear Lots of Hats
Being at a fairly small company, most everybody plays several different roles that would justify several different titles. Naturally, we all have our primary role, but that only covers about 75% of what each of us does. The cards let us cover it all without pigeon-holing someone.
Selling the People, Not the Company
Given that we’re essentially a consulting company, clients choose to work with us because of the people that work here, not because we have a pretty logo. (Which, by the way, If you look closely at the logo, you might have one of those “Aha” moments as Stephen likes to call it. Hint: Think 3-dimensional. It’s the corner of a cube.) Since we’re selling talent, the cards are focused on the people not the company.
It’s Clearer
With descriptions instead of titles, you really get down to explaining what it is that we do much better than any single word or phrase could do. This gets back to Andy’s post. It’s hard to sum up what we do. Maybe someday we’ll all have clearly defined roles such as Electrician or Carpenter, but until then, this will have to do.
Titles Can Get Pretentious
I don’t know that this was a driving reason behind the idea, but I like to think it is. While I can appreciate the usefulness of titles in some cases, I don’t much care for them. If you happened to check out the directory of attendees at SXSW and looked at the title I provided, you might already know that.
Credits
Thanks to Jeremy Johnson for the last second photography, and obviously to Stephen “Needs to get his website up” Anderson for coming up with the idea for the cards.
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Interesting! I really like the round corners and that it’s not just “the classic business card” dimensions and direction and such.
Another thing is how much I love your site design! It’s really nothing – but way enough to manoeuvre around – brilliant!
You’ve got yourself a faithful reader.. Me .. Hehe Mikkel Malmberg
Hmm, the only thing that seems weird to me is that a company called Bright Corner would have just a dull color on its business card – like a brown paper bag or piece of cardboard. I would have expected a bright red or something. Wasn’t the first version of BrightCorner.com a brilliant red color? I really liked that.
The paragraph instead of a job title is kind of cool. It’s a lot more informative than the typical business card, definitely Jennifer Grucza
Nice. They looks like trading cards, collect them all! Casey Gollan
Where do you get your cards printed at? Zach
The idea with role description is brilliant. Thank you for sharing it.
And by the way: great site design! Jan Korbel
Thanks for the compliments!
The cardboard look is in part due to the lighting/photo (in person, it’s a little more minimalist/stylish and not quite so brown!). However, our ‘brand’ (read: BC Employees) has always been more about bright ideas/thinking than creative visuals. This is partly because the bold, energetic visual desinger type cards (of which I’m a fan!) wouldn’t have fairly represented the other half of our team – the hardcore tehcnical technical engineers. We did consider some other options, metal cards, visually loud cards, etc. But on the whole, BC is more informal and conversational, something I’ve tried to represent with a less ‘designery’ visual brand identity.
For more info about the cards, or the desing thinking that led to this simple solution, here’s the internal pitch (3M pdf file). It shares a lot more about who we are, and why this was the right choice. Warning, this was an internal document, not intended for anyone outside of Bright Corner. Enjoy!
We got the cards printed at a smaller 2-color press that is preferred by one of our clients. Since we’ve only used this printer once (for this job), and we did a lot of handholding along the way, I’m going to refrain from recommending them (at this time). We do have a print broker we work with a lot, who always seems to get better prices/service than we can drum up… Stephen P Anderson
Brilliant idea! With your permission we’re going to shamelessly copy this concept. :-)
And maybe take this a step further: i’m thinking digital print & customising the text on every single card. Maybe add a quote of the person in question, or in the case of a designer: some sketches or actual designs…
But as i said: love it! Dirk Sabbe
Very nicely done. I love the simplicity of the cards. It’s a great idea that’s been well executed. Great job! Chris Harrison
Wonderful cards.
Your internal pitch PDF, however, is getting a 404.
http://www.brightcorner.com/BC_BizCard_ideas.pdf
Have you taken it down? Anthony Baker
Anthony – We’ve been cleaning off the server. We’ll put it back up shortly. Sorry about that. Garrett
What an awesome idea! Thanks for sharing Garrett. I’ve shared your idea on my blog, http://makeitgreat.org Phil Gerbyshak
What radius did you use for your rounded corners? Kenzie
Great idea indeed. I have been thinking for some time what would be best way to do business card for myself. There is almost always problem with traditional type of cards that “require” job title. This kind of approach to things is much more practical for many people that don’t have only one specific type of work to do. Daniel Schildt
Thanks for sharing your great business card ideas. An excellent way to create some positive buzz. Lucy MacDonald
Stumbled upon your site looking for my own business card ideas as an “untitled” writer/artist. Loved your mission and design clarity. What are you looking for in the way of new talent? I’m interested in coming aboard, with my two best friends: smarts and humor. Thanks for your consideration.
Melissa DalbergHe he he… It’s a cube…
eddmunGreat Idea Garrett!
I love the rounded corners.
I blogged about you and added a link.
BrandonI think you’re doing a good thing but sometimes job titles can be glamorous or just plain fun. I wrote a post about some of the cool job titles I came across when I was a journalist on my blog
Matthew Stibbe (Bad Language)I like the card and the profile. However, if you are fun with titles they are fun to have.
For a creative company especially, job titles need to be, well, creative.
Garret going with “Dir of Doughnut Freshness” is both whimzical and brilliant. I am a fan of a company called Brains on Fire. If you go to their site (brainsonfire.com) you will see where they come up with some of the most clever and wonderfully illustrative titles I have seen. So, I don’t think titles have to be stuffy, pompous or boring, They can speak of your personality, your strengths, your fears, etc…
In designing our cards for our business, I have thought long and hard about how to come out of the box and really communicate the message of our company to anyone who gets a card. Creative, relevant, and clearly defined.
I also thought long and hard about titles, I knew they needed to be fun, relate to and describe the people in our company.
The funny thing is I thought about putting a profile on each card. Not nearly as detailed as these, but a profile none the less. I ended up shying away because I thought it may be too unconventional (yes, I was afraid) and it wouldn’t fit in the format of the card we finalized.
Anyway, bravo, thanks for letting me know that it could work and it works well.
SeanReminds me very much of the Forty Media business cards but I like it.
Zach InglisI love your card, but the text is slightly flawed: it refers to “users” rather than people.
Hopefully at some point in the future, usability experts will start to consider human beings as “people” rather than “users”!
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