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December 29, 2011

The Genesis of gapingvoid Business Cards

8 Comments

If a law­yer gives you her  gaping­void busi­ness card, what does that tell you?

Like Jeff says, that you’re not dea­ling with a nor­mal lawyer…

Exactly.

[You can get the biz­card design above here, and if you like the design well enough to hang it on your wall, the print is for sale here. Rock on.]

I got the idea for gaping­void busi­ness cards when I was living in New York, when I dis­co­ve­red that I pre­fe­rred giving out my own, hand-drawn busi­ness cards to peo­ple, rather than the ho-hum busi­ness cards that my emplo­yer at the the time issued me with.

Of course, after a while it became a lot of work, dra­wing them every time I met someone. Even­tually I star­ted get­ting them prin­ted. Then I thought, why not print them for other peo­ple? The rest is history…

I always thought there was a mar­ket for busi­ness cards that stood out. Cards that reflec­ted the per­so­na­lity of the per­son han­ding them out, cards that said, “I’m not just one more ran­dom shmuck in a bar, doing the usual han­ding out his card to an equally ran­dom chick in a bar yada, yada, yada.”

Living in New York, in a sea of other equally oppor­tu­ni­tist young peo­ple on the make, it was easy to be “another ran­dom guy”. I don’t want to be that ran­dom guy. I wan­ted to be something else.

And it wor­ked. What star­ted out as an act of rebe­llion among the suits and hips­ters of Manhat­tan, tur­ned into a suc­cess­ful busi­ness and art career.

I’m having fun. You?

Tags: Cartoons Business Cards, Gapingvoid Business Cards

8 Responses to “The Genesis of gapingvoid Business Cards”

1. Bob says:

   December 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM

   Can the com­pany info side be cus­to­mi­zed a bit? I need a legal disc­lo­sure in 8 pt at the bottom.

   Reply
   • Hugh MacLeod says:

     December 29, 2011 at 3:22 PM

     You might want to ask Over­night­Prints about that…

     Reply
     • Bob says:

       December 29, 2011 at 3:39 PM

       Thanks. This fits per­fectly into my mar­ke­ting plan for 2012.

       Reply
2. Todd Schnick says:

   December 29, 2011 at 3:21 PM

   my fav part of han­ding out your busi­ness cards are one of two things:

   1. the “what the hell?” reac­tion i almost always get, which leads to a conversation…

   2. and the “do you want this back? you drew on the back of it…” question.

   pri­ce­less…

   Reply
   • Hugh MacLeod says:

     December 29, 2011 at 3:39 PM

     Exactly, Todd, there’s A LOT of value in that “what the hell” moment…

     Thanks!

     Reply
3. Gene VanCleave says:

   January 6, 2012 at 9:33 AM

   Love my new Gaping Void busi­ness cards, and they gua­ran­tee a res­ponse whe­ne­ver I give one to someone.

   Reply
4. Steve says:

   February 5, 2012 at 5:53 PM

   Hey,

   I love these. I won­der how easy it would be for you to set-up with OvernightPrints.co.uk please, or whether it is auto­ma­ti­cally? $90 pos­tage to the UK is a little too much, but I’d love to be able to order some.

   Thanks
   Steve

   Reply
5. Steve says:

   February 5, 2012 at 5:55 PM

   Alter­na­ti­vely, I won­der whether ins­tead I could pay you directly (pay­pal) for use of a cou­ple of ima­ges, that I could use on cards myself?

   Thanks
   Steve

   Reply