The lovely design team at Raspberry Pi make those of us who need them a pretty amazing business card. However, we spotted a need for an alternative in some situations.

Forgetfulness and crowded DMs

Imagine, just hypothetically, that you’re at a work event in a different country, and either you’ve brought too few business cards or you’ve forgotten them entirely. You might panic a little that you won’t be able to keep in touch with all the interesting people you meet. Panic not: our Maker in Residence has come up with a laser-cut solution, meaning you’ll need only one business card to rule them all.

While we can direct people to the DMs of our social media, we get bajillions of those. We do our best, but it’s not a fabulous way to make sure we can keep in touch with a specific person. We’re often asking for lots of photos, videos, and written info about amazing Pi-powered things people have made, and that doesn’t lend itself to the DM format. And little pieces of paper with scribbled contact details can easily get lost in transit. This laser-cut business card / necklace, then, seemed the way to go.

This is also an excellent solution if you are not forgetful but would just prefer to avoid printing lots of ordinary cards.

How is it made?

Natalie (of the aforementioned lovely design team) did the type work to get my name, contact information, and social media logos into InDesign. She then used Illustrator to convert original illustrations by our Head of Design, Jack, to an appropriate format. Then she sent Toby, our Maker in Residence, PNG files for the front and the reverse of the business card.

Toby made a very light etching, the same size as the final card, on a wooden panel which sits inside the laser cutter. This helped him see exactly where to place the business-card-sized aluminium square under the laser in order to align the words and patterns properly. The laser then burned the black aluminium to create the words and images in the PNG files.

I also requested that Toby make a necklace-sized hole in the top corner of the aluminium business card so I can choose to wear it around my neck. I don’t necessarily want to be digging through my pockets over and over to fish it out. It currently lives inside my phone case, and can just just string it onto my necklace chain when I need it at an event.

Et voilà. I never need to panic about running out of business cards ever again. Anyone I meet can simply take a photo of my business card necklace and we can keep in touch.