A Quick Story: A Final Business Card

I’ve had perhaps 25 different business cards during my working career.  As a result, I’ve had a lot of experience in writing and designing them.

            What I expect to be my last card is shown here, and it would be fun and hopefully instructive to explore why it looks and reads like it does.

            When I was approximately 12 years old, I met the Cisco Kid, an early western TV star who stayed at the motel my parents owned and operated. His popular sidekick, Pancho, was not with him but a stunt man named Black Jack was.

            Black Jack gave me his business card; it was solid glossy black with gold leaf lettering. I was forever influenced.

            My current business card is deep glossy blue with silver leaf lettering. Gold and silver leaf is actually pressed on to the card through a thin sheet of gold or silver. I believe I had a grandfather who worked for American Gold Leaf in the early 1900s so that influenced me too.

            The only artwork on the card is the San Francisco Peaks Sketch logo I used throughout my real estate career. It was made by a local artist and acquaintance who originally drew it as a rough sketch to show me how she would produce the final piece of art. I saw it in her proposal and told her I loved it as a rough sketch and bought it from her as it was.

            The sketch follows the outlines of the Peaks as seen from Flagstaff, Arizona.

            I filed to have the sketch outline protected by an Arizona trademark. It carries a small TM as a protection warning. My current catch phrase, Words That Educate, Inform, Entertain, and Persuade, is also trademark protected.

            State trademark protection is much easier and cheaper to obtain than a Federal trademark which is usually accompanied by an “R” in a circle denoting a Federally Registered Trademark.

            For contact information, I did not include a home or office address because all my work is now done electronically via laptop computers.

            So, the cards include my e-mail address, which is my preferred method of contact and communication, mobile telephone number, and web address for this site.

            My location is shown as Bellemont, Northern Arizona. Most people know where Flagstaff is but not where to locate this close-by community.

            I like the Northern Arizona mountain design because we see much more snow in the Arizona high country than the cactuses to the South.