Raised lettering, pale nimbus...white

      Hi, guys. I wanna get your opinion on something. 

It's my business card. 

I decided to get a new one too. 

Oh, it's-- 

Very nice, Luis. 

Thank you.

The other day while focused on my New Year's resolution of more networking and business development ventures a new networking link handed me her card and I noticed that their agency style was an all caps first name and an all lower case last name.

I like it. It works, but it also drives me completely nuts.

As portrayed in American Psycho, in the advertising and creative arena business cards are so far beyond important in perceived value that it's unbelievably amazing how even with a team of professional copywriters and editors on staff that they always seem to mess 'em up.

At my very first job out of college, the Public Relations firm that hired me thought it would be a very slick to have my business cards printed and displayed on my desk the first morning I started. Sort of a "Hey, welcome aboard, hit the ground running and make your 3ft by 4ft cubicle seem a little more yours," gesture I guess.

Well…my vague job title upon hiring was "Public Relations Associate". And only two weeks out of college at the time, I really had no idea what that meant or what my job duties truly included. But I did know that the job title printed on my business card in raised Garmond print was missing one very important "L" and that my job would likely involve lots of editing. Talk about starting on your hands and knees.

Years later, during my first week at a big fancy ad agency they announced that they would be printing a fresh run of business cards for all the new hires (woohoo! happy hour favors and symbols of legit career status). But that I (and only I) first had to meet with the Creative Director and one of the Writing Directors. WTF?

The two directors sat me down in a conference room and tried to make me feel comfortable and welcome, while only succeeding in coming off as increasingly smarmy as they launched their pre-rehearsed presentation. As I tried not to pee in my pants and look calm, I wondered if this skit would include a PowerPoint slide or two and, I imagined this must be what it feels like right before the company offers you a bribe to drop your claim against them and not sue.

To paraphrase their painful skit, they had invested beyond a buttload of hours and $$$ (oh quarterly profit sharing…there you went) in designing the snazzy, heavy weight cards to depict the proper creative brand image for the agency and that my name—one of those southern compound first names with the "anne" smooshed on the end and a capital "A" before the suffix to help folks with pronunciation well, just didn't work with intended design philosophy of the card which was in all lower-case.

Seriously? Yes.

I turned the card over in my hand and read it twice. Then again. I thought for a second—then counted to 10 and took a deep breath to appear as if I was seriously contemplating my response.

"Well, I understand the amount of research, thought and design that went into this, it's beautiful and compelling…and I'm comfortable with the all lowercase appearance of my name on the card…but would it be OK to add my last name to the card? I'm not familiar with the Bauer family…"

Is that a gram? 

New card. 

What do you think? 

Whoa-ho. Very nice. 

Look at that. Picked them up from the printer's yesterday. 

Good coloring. That's bone. 

And the lettering is something called Silian Rail. 

It's very cool, Bateman, but that's nothing. Look at this. 

That is really nice. 

Eggshell with Romalian type. What do you think ? 

Nice. 

Jesus. That is really super. How'da nitwit like you get so tasteful? 

I can't believe that Bryce...prefers Van Patten's card to mine. 

But wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet. 

Raised lettering, pale nimbus... white. 

Impressive. Very nice. 

Hmm. 

Let's see Paul Allen's card. 

Look at that subtle off-white coloring. 

The tasteful thickness of it. 

Oh, my God. It even has a watermark.