Professional Practice – Week 11

The final assessment for Professional Practice is due next week, for which a physical business card is part. This is the only element of this project that I was able to get printed commercially, so I thought it was worth a post of its own.

At the start of the semester, I had grand plans for the physical business card (as opposed to the electronic version, which was required for the first assessment). I was thinking along the lines of die cuts, or some clever paper mechanics, however in the end, I chose to do a complete 180 and keep things very basic by being as environmentally aware as possible.

I had these cards printed on 100% recycled card, but more importantly, I made sure they were printed on unfinished stock, using vegetable based inks. I’m hardly delusional enough to think that anyone would want to keep my business card forever (particular as printed business cards become less relevant), so sooner or later it will need to break down. ‘Features’ like a glossy finish, metallic inks and even more consuming printing procedures all have an impact on the environment. Whether that impact is during production, or once the media ends up as waste, is totally irrelevant – it’s the post-consumer waste that seems to receive the most attention though. I tried to be aware of both ends of the cycle.

Once I got the finished cards back, my first impression of the printing was that the colours were a little dull. I realised pretty quickly that this was due to the unfinished, matte stock that I chose and I’ve now warmed to them. I particularly like that the recycled stock has imperfections that give the card a very slight texture and uniqueness.

Without making this a plug, the printing company I used was really helpful and I’ll definitely send work their way again. Particularly for someone like me that has limited print experience, they gave me plenty of pointers and seem to genuinely care about what they do.

I’d really like to send the rest of my assessment to be printed commercially, but the likelihood of it being complete with enough time for printing turnaround is slim to none at this stage. At least I’ve got a few hundred cards to drum up business, should uni assessments go out the window.