This blogpost is written in English, due to the international attention my business card gets. I’ve received many emails and direct messages asking how I got the idea and how the card has been made. So I thought it would be useful to create a blog post of the process.
V2.0 - Picture by Nathan de Vries
A business card: that paper thingy you get shoved in your hands when someone smells money. In times of Pokens and MyNameIsE I needed a card which would last and gets attention. Futhermore, it has to be a card which reflects me: Analog Photography and Concept development.
The idea
Ideas always appear during the most random moments. The moment that gave me the idea for my card was when I just completed developing a roll of film. When checking the frames, I saw a photo with some text on it. Besides that, I was again amazed by the sharpness of the negative and this made me think: “Why don’t we use this stuff in displays, for text or something like that?” And that was the flash of inspiration: negative+text = business card.
I made the test version of a medium format film, also known as 120 film. I chose this format, because it’s the format I use most and because it represents me. The test immediately showed me the disadvantage of 120 film though: as it’s not recognized as a film negative by people who have never seen it before! So I dismissed these cards and produced some new ones. Since those are more recognizable due to their sprockets holes, I chose the 35mm format this time.
The second version. I made a new design in Illustrator and picked an old 35mm slr camera of my granddad (I normally don’t shoot 35mm, only 120 and 4×5) and shot 36 new business cards. The cards were a success and soon my first batch was gone. After a while, people even asked for new cards because they lost theirs. Cool! People like to have my business card! But the reason they lost the card was mainly because of the different, smaller size…
Version 3 with 2 frames.
So again I decided to redesign it. I developed the third and last version a little bit bigger so that the width of the card matches exactly the size of a normal business. It contains 2 frames next to each other now which also give space for more info and a bigger font size.
For the next version I’m thinking about inverting the design, so the cards will contain more transparency, but I’m not sure it will be readable enough.
How is it made?
First I made a canvas in Illustrator which was as big as the image on a 35mm film: 24mm x 36mm an put some text in it. When the design was finished I scaled the image as big as possible, filling my 26″ screen.
Then I did established my tripod with an analog 35mm camera. I used a Nikon F60 from about 1 meter distance of the screen, making sure the canvas on the screen was overlapping the image in the viewfinder. The zoom lens was completely zoomed in, because I didn’t want any distortion. I lit measurement while showing a 12% gray canvas on screen and put the aperture on 8.
Viral
The concept is a success. The photo of the card has gone viral through Flickr on various blogs. Half of the traffic I get on this blog is due to the card. Cardonizer, Pixelcurse, Squidoo, Creative Design Magazine, Abduzeedo and other blogs and magazines featured my card. Never thought such simple concept would reach so much people across the globe. I want to thank all the blogs for the massive exposure and I hope this blog post gave you a insight in the process behind the card.
“Alles is wiskunde”. Alles is gebasseerd patronen en formules. Kijk maar eens naar de natuur, bijvoorbeeld de bekende Fibonaccispiraal die je op de bloem van de zonnebloem kan vinden. Of op de puntjes van aardbeien
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