After the embarrassing incident on the Galloping Goose, it.s high time to make a business card! For assiduous readers who haven.t read the post, here.s how it went down: I met two ladies at a cafe along the Galloping Goose. We exchanged stories on the self-publishing experience (one of them had published a book on caring for her husband through MS). They were also interested in tragic art theory (the other lady was perhaps an academic: she had met Joseph Campbell of The Hero with a Thousand Faces fame). Familiar with the business card swapping routing from the days at Bayside Mechanical, I instinctively reached for my business card so that they could look up the blog. While there were still Bayside Mechanical ‘Project Manager’ cards in my wallet (now collectible!), I didn.t have any for my new occupation. So I had to borrow a pen from the barista and scrawl ‘melpomeneswork.com’ in my decidedly less than stellar penmanship on a scrap of paper. To be honest, everything is so much typing these days, I.m not sure if I still remember how to write, or even print! The incident stuck in my head as a fail: not professional. Even if I.m a semi-hobo, one must take pride in what one does.

Melpomene’s Work Business Card

It was that afternoon on the wonderful bike ride back home that I resolved: ‘Come hell or high water I shall have a business card once again!’ (the ‘shall’ instead of ‘will’ to accentuate the determination). Could the Bayside Mechanical card be recycled? Maybe scrawl out ‘Project Manager’ and write … hmmm … ‘Hobo’? Or ‘Writer’? What is it that I do these days anyway? It.s probably not something in the normal lexicon of terms. And the Bayside card seemed too businesslike, since, well, it.s a business card. Here.s what it looks like:

There were also vintage T.W. Wong’s Family Holding Company (from grandfather.s name, Tung-Wo Wong) that could be modified. It had a nice graphic on it too:

This one had been modelled after the Bayside business card. While the graphic took away the strictly business appeal of the Bayside card, the same problem remained: the occupation (whatever that is) that I.m in is not really part of the business world anymore. The card needed to capture the ‘artsy’ or even the ‘non-business’ side of things.

The boat image that.s incorporated into the ‘T’ of ‘TWW’ could have been retained. There.s plenty of images of Dionysus on a boat with the mast as a vine and grape leaves hanging off the sails. Since Dionysus is the god of the theatre (comedy and tragedy arose from his dithyramb), the image could anchor the association between the card and Melpomene’s work.

But on further thought, this seemed too cliche.

Time for a Google ‘Best Business Card’ Search

Google had lots and lots of samples of high quality business cards. Here.s one that looked promising:

What a great card! EA hit the nail on the head when she described it as a combination between ‘mug shot’ and ‘library card’. Looking at other cards, the trend is to have an image of the cardholder. But since it.s not like I.m famous, that would serve little point, e.g. ‘Is that … the Edwin Wong on the card?’ is not happening. It.d be cool to have an image on the card though to make it memorable. And those are the strengths of the Studio Triciclo business card: 1) it has an image, 2) image is memorable because it.s ‘anonymous’, like the part of the face you see under a venetian mask, 3) no address (not really required anymore), and 4) awesome retro typewriter font adds to the memorability.

To make this happen, talented photographer MR has snapped some shots. Here.s what they look like:

Which one to go with?–maybe one of each! And this weekend will get together with graphic designer extraordinaire EA to put it together. Here.s the layout thus far:

Not sure if diligent readers can make it out in the sketch, but under ‘occupation’ I am listed as ‘doing Melpomene’s work’. That is perfect: not ‘writer’ nor ‘project manager’ but simply ‘doing Melpomene’s work’–that is absolutely perfect because, well, it gets the idea right: it.s sort of ‘in between’ real occupations but an occupation nonetheless.

And then the reverse side? Well, it.d be a shame to leave it blank! Years (decades, actually) ago LH painted really captivating image of a falling dude. It.s a really memorable. Since tragedy can be construed as a fall, why not use him as the mascot? The goal is to take the colour out and have him as a line image on the reverse side. Here it is:

BTW it.s upside down, but the fall looks more dramatic this way with the one arm reaching back up to the heights from which he tumbled down.

Until next time, I.m Edwin Wong and Doing Melpomene’s Work will seem so much more professional once the business card come out. Like a kid on Christmas Eve I can.t wait!