Ho hum. 

So it's time for me to do some business card-y stuff. What kind of business card? 

I want to become a storyteller. Specifically one who utilizes Illustration and Narrative techniques.

But wait, that could mean I want to be an illustrator. Or a screenwriter! Or a scriptwriter! Who said you can get away with piling them all up under the umbrella of "storytelling"?

Well... stay tuned to see how I figure that out. 

Bear with me, there isn't a whole lot of stuff to show here. However, progress is progress. Here's a moodboard.

I'm going for this whole modern thing. Clean lines, consistent geometry, strong visual motifs, the works. 

But what's the point? Like, what am I going to do to make sure my business card doesn't look like EVERY single business card already out there? 

Well, there are two things I want to keep in the final design:

1: Lasercut. I want to use lasercut shapes to add some unique visuals to this jam right here. Maybe it'll be an overlapping "window" on top of a visual diddly that can be slid out of the overlapping sleeve.

2: Sequence. Static cards are so boring! What if there were no sequence at all? What if I handed someone a business card that doesn't have moving parts? They'd just be like 'oh, uh, thanks. Thank you for this dead piece of paper.' That'd be terrible! It's gotta have moving parts. But really, in all seriousness, I want my card to be something that potential employers will remember. And I think they'll ultimately remember it best if the card is an experience for them. In the end, that's why I'm here, right? To provide experiences?

So what do I have? What have I made so far?

Well, here's a project I had last year that kinda fell through. I made some self-branding stuff for a different project, under a different brand name. To be honest though, I still really like a decent amount of this aesthetic, and this feel. I might end up reusing or repurposing some assets from this brand I made.

Something in particular I enjoyed about this aesthetic was how similar it looked to a playing card. I really enjoy the art of playing cards, and something inside me gets giddy at the thought of making a business card with playing card aesthetics. Especially those really busy, complicated, intricate designs you usually see on the backs of cards or on the face cards. 

Maybe that's a direction to go?

And now here's some logos and trademarks. I already use the ones in the top left as signatures for my art, but I think it'd be nice to update the ol' signature machine. I circled the designs I liked the most, and will probably move forward with.

But waaaait, wait. Hold up. What's that in the bottom left?

Uh... yeah. I'm probably going to be going by a different name come a couple months or so. My brother wanted to change his so I'm changing mine out of solidarity. And, well, because "Joe" is such a boring name. Maybe Aspen or Stratford? Those are the names of the two streets I grew up on. Kinda attached to those names.

Alright, time to wrap it up.

To close, how about a look at what I'm planning to do as far as color palette?

Palette A: Shades
I like this one because I get this sort of happy contrast between the color. Not to mention these are all autumn colors, which I'm totally in love with. 

Palette B: Complementary
I liked this one because it has some goldish-orange and really saturated blues, and those colors remind me of magic. I'm not sure if this is a feeling anyone and everyone gets, but the blue/gold combo always brings classical magic stuff to mind. It's an aesthetic I kinda want to embrace. I might even mix this with the 'playing card aesthetic' brought up a few paragraphs back.

Palette C: Analogous
Aaaaand a boring ol' analogous scheme to finish it off. Probably won't go with this one for anything visually intense, but as I established earlier I do enjoy the autumnal tones. Maybe this can be a resume palette.