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2002-09-11 - 9:47 a.m.

Everyone has a racket, and everyone has a business card advertising their racket.

Business cards tell it all. Trademarks telling everything about us in a nutshell, and the tales they tell are as diverse as the people who carry the cards. I've even seen kids trading business cards! The little cards are a way to prove our legitimacy and show we're professional and a part of something. Check out the card and you can find out just what it is we're a part of.

I have a business card. No artistic masterpiece, but a simple pale gray card with the school's black and burgundy logo in the left-hand corner. My name and pedigree, address, phone number (and email, of course) are printed in an easy to read Times font. Nothing fancy, just standard, no-frills fare for the district. Certainly nothing like some objets d' art I've seen some folks flash.

The emphasis on networking is most likely behind the business card boom. Every-damn-body is networking (and thinking outside the box and taking part in company culture and pushing the envelope and raising the bar) so everybody is ordering up business cards. A way to make a first impression. An image. The handshake just doesn't do the trick anymore.

Gone are the days of the routine black ink on white or cream oaktag. Today's cards are die-cut, folded or designed as pop-ups. They're embossed, foil stamped or reversed out with an ink-coated background and plain lettering. They come in one color, two colors, four colors, sparkles and glitter. Art logos include piano keys, houses, typewriters, tractors, paint brushes, cars, gavels, motorcycles and more.

I once met a cabinetmaker who carried a supply of laser-inscribed, walnut cards. A salesman for a silk screening company handed me a silk-screened velvet polyester calling card, and an envelope and forms specialist gave me a card which was a tiny red, white and blue envelope. Not cheap! But all were unusual, caught the eye and represented what these people did.

The ultimate mirror of the person-or the ultimate in vanity-just might be the personal photo card. This type of card might help connect names with faces, but I wouldn't want them. No one else would want me to have them, either. One of me is enough-or so I've been told often enough--and to go about handing out hundreds of little images of me would surely qualify as some sort of sin, if not total insanity.

Okay, so if these little cards are to be representative of us and are to give other people a quick first impression of who and what we are, what kinds of cards should we be carrying around? You can take mine and read it and learn my name, my professional job title and educational background-represented by strings of two and three letters. But you would have to read it (ever wonder how many people really do read the cards?). Unlike the cabinetmaker and the silk screener, my little gray slip isn't a three-dimensional picture of anything.

I suppose, if we're going to create a truly representative card, we might need to be careful of what we design. We could go back to the social thing where we leave cards in a silver tray in the entry hall when we go a calling. I can think of several things people might suggest as representations for me, and most of those clever personifications would not be appreciated in the little silver tray!

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