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DIY gifts, with help from your friends

December 2009, by Denise | 2 Comments Latest by Liz Dellar

Recent years have seen the rise of ‘handmade’ on the internet. Stores like Etsy, Dwanda, Glimpse Online, Folksy and more, all sell work from talented crafters, while crafting communities like Ravelry are full of people quite literally doin’ it for themselves. The current economy means there’s less money to spend on gifts this year too, and now more than ever people feel the need to give gifts that really count.

It’s not easy being a crafter though – especially at this time of year. Long lists of gifts to make can be daunting, and the creation of a flawless item takes time that isn’t always available. Buying handmade is a great substitute of course, but there are still some quick and easy projects around that are both fun to make AND easy to do. Create them as a ‘main gift’, or make a little something to add personal touch to a present you’ve bought else where…

These cute gift-tags were made by MOO favourite Fashion Fucsia. A talented illustrator, she’s found a variety of ways to make MOO work for her, and she sells her wares – including these tags – in her shop.

If you have illustrations of your own, you could take a leaf out of her book and make your own gift tags this year with MiniCards. No illustration skills? No problem! Make them with your own photos – imagine how cute it would be to receive a gift with a personalised photo on the tag!

If you’re giving gifts to clients or customers and you’re looking for more business-like gift tags, then Robyn, over at Paperie Boutique can help you out.

She’s made this template available for download as a PSD, so you can change the colours, or the text and make it your own. It’s the right size for a MiniCard, so simply save your own version as a high resolution JPEG and upload it to MOO. Robyn has also made this design available too:

(And if you’re in need of packaging tips for your clients, we’d recommend a read of the rest of her blog too!)

While we’re on the subject of MiniCards here’s a few more nice ideas:

Colourful banners
This is a birthday banner, but would work equally well adapted for Christmas and the holidays. Simply upload your own illustrations or photography, or choose some great designs from MOO’s own designers.

Beautiful bookmarks
These bookmarks were made by photographer Emmalynne. To make your own, just punch a hole in your Minicards and add a colour co-ordinated ribbon.

Memory scrapbook
Feeling the need to get stuck in with some glue? We love this scrap-book style calendar decorated with MiniCards. Add your own photos from the year and this makes a fun project for children to make for grandparents. Need something easier for little fingers? Personalised Stickers available from the MOO UK store work well too.

You’ve been framed

As you’ll know by now, we’ve recently launched a new and improved Mosaic Frame. Available in black or white, each frame holds 20 different MiniCards – in any arrangement you like! You can hang it portrait or landscape, and packed full of your own photography it makes a wonderful memory-filled gift.

This shot by Miha Rekar shows his new black frame full of his own colourful gig photography:

Looking for a cheaper stocking filler? It’s easy to make token gifts by looking out for smaller frames available in high-street shops. These MiniCards by Lomogirl look amazing as a simple set of three:

With 100 cards in every MiniCard pack, if you find small frames at the right price, it’s a bumper set of gifts without breaking the bank.

Postcards – year round fun!

Postcards aren’t just for sending to friends back home, when you’re off on your holidays. They can be used for thank-you cards, speedy notes, pictures to put on your fridge, invitations and works of art.

They can even be educational. We loved these cards made by Jonathan Howells last year:

Personalised flash cards, they were made as a gift for family far away, and feature family photos to illustrate the alphabet. It’s a sweet, easy-to-make-with-MOO gift, simple to pack and post, and cost effective too!

Are you an illustrator, fine artist or photographer? Print a pack of 20 Postcards, like Kathleen below, and tie sets of 4 or 5 with pretty ribbon. Add gold or silver envelopes for an extra touch, and you have a gift more special than any boxed set of notecards from your local stationer.

Don’t box me in!

Once you’ve got your MiniCards delivered and your gifts at the ready, there’s one last bit of fun to be had: join in our MiniCard box-decorating competition! Wrap the box as a gift or a piece of festive packaging, take a photo and add it to our Flickr Pool. Tag it with the words ‘MOOGiftBox’ and you’re all done. We’ve spotted some cute entries so far, including this, by creative crafter Wiccked

Have fun – you’ve got until the 28th December!

PS: Don’t forget the Holiday shipping deadlines!

2 Comments

Picking the right card for the job

December 2009, by Anne-Marie | 1 Comment Latest by Gina

Ever dreamed of quitting your day job and just taking off around the world? Well, who hasn’t, right? But some people actually do it. And we’re not just talking about taking a brief sabbatical either.

Take Kristin and Paul Cowles.

They loved travel, but found that working in advertising was just giving them ‘itchy feet’. A whiz around the world only to end up back back in the regular rat-race just wasn’t going to cut it. Instead, they formed a company that combined their two loves, travel and computers, creating a The Circumference, a website dedicated to inspiring others to take the trip of a lifetime.

The Circumference isn’t about pre-packaged tours and ticking off a list of tourist “must-sees”. It’s about experiences. Kids on mopeds flinging hot pink vegetable-powder dye into your hair at the Holi festival of colours in India. Sea-turtles right up close as you try open-water diving for the first time in the MiniCards and Business Cards with them in order to promote their company, with each style of card performing a slightly different function. Below, Kirsty tells us a little more about these cards and describes the ways in which they, and the Circumference, aim to help inspire people to follow their dreams.

Nice business cards! How did you decide which photos to include?

We choose a combination of the most unique – and the best – experiences we’d done personally on some of our recent travels. The criteria that we focused on for selection was quality and inspiration. It was also important to us that our cards embody a variety of different experiences – what appeals to one person might not to another.

How were your business cards received on your first trip?

For our first trip we took along the MiniCards and they were great. We used them largely with other travellers and some business contacts. Their unique size made them memorable and more of a ‘marketing piece’ than a standard ‘business card’. It also made taking a large quantity much easier in our backpacks!

Do the cards, being predominantly image- rather than text-based, help you to transcend cultural and language boundaries?

Definitely! Approximately 65% of people are visual learners, so it also really helps relay our message of inspiration through experience. You can see the understanding sink in as they scroll through the cards and see the variety of images/experiences we have to offer. It’s also great because people get excited picking out the card they want to take, looking for their favourite, one they relate to, or one that inspires them.

You’re using two sizes, the Business Cards and the MiniCards – what made you decide to do this? Any difference in the way the cards are used?

The reason we did this was largely based on function. Between trips we found the need for more business-related information and so we added the business cards to the collection. When we were on the road in Asia, we didn’t really need to provide people with our mailing address or phone number. We still continue to use both sizes, the Business Cards for business contacts largely at home and the MiniCards for awareness/marketing and taking on the road.

What do you think about the option of short print runs? It’s not a standard Business Card offering, but is it useful to you?

Short print runs and the ability to choose 50 images is invaluable. It allows us flexibility and variety, both of which are important to us. We also found the creation and ordering process simple and pretty straightforward to use.

What plans for the future?

We’re in the process of planning our next world adventure, tentatively set in India, the Philippines and Palau. Not sure exactly where we’re going yet though, we tend to make last minute decisions. It’s part of the fun and adventure of travelling. Will we be taking our Moo Cards with us? But of course!

Thanks for stopping long enough to chat with us, Kristin!
Get inspired to plan your next trip at www.thecircumference.org

1 Comment

Illustration that packs a punch in the post

November 2009, by Anne-Marie | 7 Comments Latest by Roxann Souci

Freelance life can be tough. Long gaps between commissions. Accounts departments who just can’t seem to find your invoice. Not to mention the ever-present need to get your work seen by the people who count.

Jonny Wan, a freelance illustrator from Sheffield, knows all about that. A graduate of the Manchester School of Art, he’s constantly striving to ensure his unique illustrative style (think abstracted facial expressions, patterns, symmetry and hand-drawn lettering) snags the attention of creative directors everywhere – and he does so via Business Cards and Postcards from MOO.

MOO first caught his eye at his university degree show, where he noticed that all the students’ cutest promo materials were produced by the same company – MOO! Then we tempted him with a free Business Card sample, giving him a chance to try our ordering software (”simple, logical and gives the user complete control”) and evaluate our print quality and finishing (”very pleasing”). Duly hooked, Jonny ordered a set of Postcards and some Business Cards featuring a range of his work, and is preparing to send them off to art directors as we speak.

As an illustrator, working in a visual medium, presentation is very important to Jonny. “I like to make little promotional packs of my postcards and business cards”, he says. “I send them out packaged in self-seal clear bags. It’s good to put real thought into how the art director receives your promo materials – it’s boring to just whack some cards in an envelope.”

Like many creative types, Jonny’s happiest when he’s working, even between commissions. An example of this is his self-initiated “Can’t Afford It” project. Whenever he wants an item of clothing he can’t afford, he draws it instead! Eventually to be self-published as a book, working like this helps him improve his work rate, hone his Photoshop and Illustrator skills, and keep his unique style fresh and ever-evolving.

No matter how his style develops, MOO’s short print runs means that his promotional materials are always in step with his latest work. “As an illustrator, your style is always changing and improving. The last thing you want is to end up with a thousand cards of the same design. You need to keep existing and future clients up to date with your freshest, latest work, because essentially they will hire you based on what they see on your promo material. It’s no good for an art director to commission you only to find that your illustrative style has changed or moved on.” He laughs. “After all, you wouldn’t be happy buying a Jay-Z CD to find a Metallica disc inside, right?”

When designing his cards, Jonny also took advantage of a new feature that allows users to upload images for both the front and the back of the Business Cards. “Anything that gives you more options allows room for creative control – and it’s that kind of flexibility that keeps me coming back to MOO. The ability to upload images for both sides of the Business Cards enables you to make the cards completely unique.”

“A business card is usually the first point of contact between a new client and an illustrator, so it’s important your card jumps out at people while being straight and upfront with your contact details. The fact that the cards can be individual rather than generic also gives a sense of professionalism – people can be impressed that you’ve put the effort into designing your own cards. A little effort can go a long way.”

Jonny’s constantly thinking of new ways to promote his work using MOO products. “I love the Stickers – I can see them being a very unique selling point. They’re a little different and unexpected, which is beneficial in an industry where everyone strives to promote themselves in a unique way.”

MiniCards appeal to him for the same reason. “MiniCards are great because they get straight to the point and don’t take up a lot of space. Art directors get bombarded with samples every morning. They open their mail and have to make snap decisions about what to keep and what to chuck.”

“They’re more likely to pin a MiniCard onto their noticeboard than, say, a leaflet, because they know it won’t take up a lot of space. And if your work’s on their noticeboard, they’re more likely to bear you in mind when it comes to commissioning. And that’s what it’s all about!”

Thanks for talking to us Jonny! We look forward to seeing more of your work soon.

Like Jonny’s work? He’s available for commissions so get in touch, and say hello from us too.

7 Comments

‘My mini-mini portfolio’

October 2009, by Anne-Marie | 13 Comments Latest by Roxann Souci

After giving you the story behind Perch’s MiniCards, we thought we should catch up with photographer, Simon Warren. Also featured on our MiniCards page, he’s been taking advantage of the latest features and comparing them with the larger Business Cards he’s been using (and loving) for a while. Here’s what he had to say:

Simon Warren is one of the UK’s top location photographers. He’s been using MOO’s Business Cards to showcase his outstanding graphic images: bold exteriors, sleek interiors, arresting construction shots and more.

Though happy with the size and scope of the Business Cards, he’s recently been experimenting with MiniCards, with positive results.



A hardcore Business Card fan, Simon was initially worried by the slimmed-down dimensions of the MiniCards (about half the size of a full-size business card.)

“At first, I was concerned that the cards would be simply too small to showcase my photos effectively”, he explains. “But actually, this can work very well. The cards show snippets of images – almost abstract – giving a hint of information, but (quite literally) not the full picture.”

Rather than being a hindrance, this fits well with other design aspects of his brand. “My website works in exactly the same way – visitors are shown an interesting or intriguing section of an image, which they click to see in full. It’s a simple but effective way to get people involved and interacting with my work.” 



He also likes the impact the MiniCards can have when shown together. “Once you have a whole bunch of cards spread out on the table, the viewer is able to get a better impression of your work than a single image can provide, so that’s how I like to show them. Then I let the viewer choose whichever one they want. The fact that they’ve been involved in the choice often helps them remember your work better than if you simply thrust a card into their hand.

“I often refer to my MOO Business Cards as my ‘mini-portfolio’. My MiniCards are now my mini-mini portfolio!” he laughs. “Sometimes when you’re carrying a full set of business cards around in a holder, it can be a little clunky. At a very basic level, they’re physically easier to carry around with you. As a photographer, you carry so much equipment with you – that’s a big plus.”



Simon’s also pleased with his MiniCard holder. “It swings open sideways and then you push the cards out with your thumb. It’s unusual and I think people like that.

“At networking events so many people are handing out conventional business cards in conventional holders. Sometimes that’s what you want, but other times it’s good to stand out a little. MiniCards can help you do just that.”

Thanks for chatting with us Simon!
Find out more about Simon’s work, or check out his portfolio.

13 Comments

There’s magic in sharing Mathematics

October 2009, by Anne-Marie | 15 Comments Latest by Tony Finbarr-Smith

Some subjects lend themselves naturally to MiniCards and Business Cards – what could be more tempting than a picture of, say, a tin of sweeties, or a delicate filigree necklace? And other subjects are little more challenging. Like, for example, mathematics. How do you promote yourself when you’re a Cambridge-educated maths genius with a clutch of degrees and a bundle of prizes to your name? How to stop people going “Ew, maths – boring!” and trying to run away when you start talking about what you do?

Matthew Handy knows how. He’s a private maths teacher, providing tuition to individuals and small groups to help them pass their Maths and Further Maths A-levels. He helps with undergraduate courses with mathematical content, and advises pupils on UCAS, including Oxbridge. He also designs some rather nifty business cards – take a look at these Bauhaus-inspired beauties…

His cards feature mathematical theorems and diagrams in classic red, black and white colours, turning what might have been a potentially dry and challenging business card into a beautiful visual object that can also, of course, double up as a study aid. We got in touch with Matthew to tell him how much we liked his cards, and to find out how a maths guru like him developed such a knack for canny self-marketing.

We love the design of your cards – very creative and graphic. How have the cards been received? Do they seem to stick in people’s minds?

The first print run (of 200) ran out within a week! Students love them because they cover the topics that they have the most difficulty remembering. Although mathematics is about understanding, it is much easier if you’ve learnt the building blocks. For younger students it’s the times tables. At A-level, it’s the material that I’ve put on my cards. I got so frustrated at writing out those formulas over and over again and this seemed the perfect way of promoting my services and demonstrating how useful they could be.

If you don’t mind us saying, graphic design and self-marketing is not normally a skill you associate with maths tutors, yet you seem to have quite a flair for it. How do you come up with your marketing concepts?

I’ve always been fascinated by page design. As a young kid I used to collect headed notepaper. I would write to big companies, just so they’d write back and I could add to my collection. I first discovered the Apple Mac at university – it blew me away – and since then I’ve worked on a number of design projects: from books and newspapers, to corporate image work for schools, a restaurant and a record company.

You founded Ivory Tower magazine at Cambridge, and launched MXpress, a newspaper for young people, after you graduated. Is the creative and practical side of magazine publishing something that appeals to you?

I love the whole process of producing something printed. Watching the first copies of MXpress coming off the presses was incredible: this huge room-sized machine, manned by half a dozen people, churning out tens of thousands of copies of something I’d created. It was like watching the birth of my first child. I love print.

Speaking of print – paper finish: Green or Classic for your Business Cards?

I’ve so far always opted for the Classic. It’s beautiful. That’s part of the pleasure I get from print: the physical feel of the material. I really should try the Green, though.

Did you find MOO’s creation and ordering process easy to use?

I’m a control freak, so I love the process. I can change things as often as I want without annoying anyone!

Any plans to use MOO cards in other ways in the future? For example, have you thought of doing a set of 50 and giving / selling them as a complete set of study tips?

That’s certainly on the cards (excuse the pun!). I’ve also thought about using the MiniCards as key-ring crib sheets.

Are MOO’s short print runs useful to you?

I’m a huge fan of MOO. Everything is so stylish, and it’s all done with a real sense of fun. The small print runs allow experimentation and flexibility, which is terrific for a small business like mine.

Thanks to Matthew Handy for chatting with us – for more information about his tuition or to book yourself a lesson, visit his site.

And for those who are confused by the ’s’ on the end of the word ‘math’ – that’s just the way we say it in the UK ;-)

Would you like to make some Business Cards of your own?

15 Comments

A quick roundup of nifty marketing ideas

August 2009, by Denise | 4 Comments Latest by Charmaine

If there’s one thing we like at MOO it’s good ideas. And it’s been a little while since our last post sharing ideas from our creative community – so we thought now would be a good time for a catchup. So, sit back and take in some of the cool ideas we’ve spotted recently.

Peta Love is an author, and founder of Biliopet, an indie publisher of gift books for pets. Her most recent tome, Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul is ‘a treasury of stories that your dog will love’.

Sadly, as most of you know, it’s the owners – not the dogs – with all the money, so Peta has created these fantastic MiniCard tags as a promotional tool to catch the owner’s eye.

Using the simple Text-o-matic tool for the front of the cards, each card has an area to fill in with doggy details on the back, and a little ring to attach the card to a dog’s collar. Just like Jack Hooker’s Business Cards, Peta rounded the MiniCard corners with a corner cutter.

We love the idea of creating multiple cards for people to personalise – it’s a great value-for-money marketing tool, as you can get so many cards from one pack. We mentioned these last Christmas, but the idea still makes us smile:

These are personalised playdate cards, created by photographer Robyn Pollman. Originally designed as a Christmas gift, they work as both a client ‘thank you’ and a referral card. (And if you’re looking for more inspiration for referral cards, we covered some cool ideas here.)

Readers of the MOOsletter might’ve spotted these super-cute magnets already. (If you’d like to sign up to the our MOO newsletter, there’s a sign up box in the right hand column of this page!). Made with magnetic tape and MiniCards these feature fashion fucsia’s own illustrations, and are for sale on Etsy:

What better way to promote your artwork and get your work into potential clients hands, than creating beautiful (saleable!) products?

These stylish MOO Postcards are also for sale on Etsy, created by artist and designer, Dee Adams.

And this display was created to accompany an exhibition of work by Natasha Newton. Also a MOO Designer, Natasha tells us not only did her exhibition go well, but her postcards ’sold like hotcakes!’.

Are your MOO Cards more than just Business Cards? Let us know what you’re up to – we love to hear about innovative uses of our products, and featuring the brains behind them.

4 Comments

MOO gets agile…

July 2009, by Nicky | 11 Comments Latest by June Lim

Well, I suppose it makes us more agile – in that we move from our desks to the meeting rooms more often…

The dev team here at MOO started using the Agile Scrum methodology for managing our software development projects at the beginning of the year, and it’s been a very enjoyable experience so far. Imagine my glee when I found out we weren’t the only ones making Planning Poker cards from MOO Business Cards :-) And they’re not the only ones either, our friends at Made By Many said of their cards:

“We used MOO to make up printed agile estimation cards because we were fed up with scraps of badly-drawn paper. Each estimator has their own individual colour, and selects a card with his/her personal estimate. It makes the process feel much more professional! ”

Planning Poker is a different way of estimating projects. In my previous lives, I’ve used hours, days, weeks, sometimes months, and the ever popular “pull a figure out of the air and double/triple/quadruple it, depending on how hard you think your project manager’s going to work you” approach. Scrum uses a funny unit called a ’story point’, where a story is a piece of work and the number of points the story is worth is how much effort the piece of work will take the team to produce.

It’s called planning *poker* because after talking about what’s involved in the tasks, each of us gets a set of numbered cards, decides secretly how many points we think the task is worth, and puts a card down, face down. The ideal aim of the game is for all of us to know each other and our codebase so well that we all agree first time around when we turn over the cards. Since ideals are very hard to achieve, we more likely end up arguing the case to the rest of the team.. Shouting can sometimes be heard. Biscuits are eaten in anger and frustration, and sometimes, happily :-)

We caught the design team on a good day and plied them with biscuits too, and they made us these. Not just in pink either…

So if you’ve had similar fun with your planning poker cards, send them over to the Flickr pool or let us know, I’d love to see them!

***UPDATE: If you’d like to make some planning poker cards, you can use ours! Upload your own image for the back and pretend you designed them yourself (we wont tell).***

11 Comments

Colalife: MOO friends in high places

July 2009, by Lucie | Add a comment

If you happen to be in London this afternoon (Friday!), why not join some of the MOO crew down at Trafalgar Square? Not only will it be an opportunity to hang out with Nelson on his column, cool down with the pigeons in the fountain and perhaps have a wander around the National Gallery – but you’ll also be able to cheer on MOO customer and friend Simon Berry, of ingenious charity Colalife. For one hour he’ll have pride of place on the famously unadorned 4th plinth – as part of Anthony Gormley’s latest project, ‘One and Other’.

Colalife is a campaign to encourage Coca-Cola to share it’s distribution network in developing countries. With the purpose of getting much needed medicines and other ’social products’ such as condoms, rehydration salts and vitamin A tablets to the people that really need them.

A recent post on the Colalife blog sums it up nicely:
“You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere in developing countries and yet 1 in 5 children die before the age of 5 from largely preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea.”

Determined to do something about this, Simon has invented the ‘aidpod’. A simple yet innovative, wedge-shaped pod that fits in the unused space between the necks of the bottles in a Coca-Cola crate. The aidpod will be filled with whatever is urgently required locally. Since he first came up with the idea nearly 20 years ago, it’s only recently that the campaign has taken off in a big way – largely due to the internet.

After blogging about it back in May 2008, a huge community has developed around the idea. Simon’s Facebook group and appearances on Radio 4’s iPM programme have created real interest. Bob Geldof has wished them good luck and on Tuesday this week Sarah Brown (wife of the Prime Minister, for anyone who knows another Sarah Brown!) tweeted about them.

All of this has resulted in the opening of the first discussions with Coca-Cola – which is fantastic news!

But let’s get back to this Friday. If you’re thinking, ‘this is a bit strange, what’s a charity doing standing about in Trafalgar Square where a statue should be?’ Well, allow me to elaborate…

The 4th plinth, empty since 1841, is now used as a stage for contemporary artworks, commissioned especially from leading artists. You’ll probably remember one fo the first commissions – Marc Quinn’s sculpture, Alison Lapper Pregnant, (shown below, in a shot by Loz Flowers) which was on the plinth from 2005-2007.

Alison, an artist herself, was born with no arms and legs. She was also 7 months pregnant at the time she sat for the sculpture. Quinn wanted to make a sculpture of someone born with no limbs, to see if it’s beauty would receive the same unconditional acceptance as that of ancient sculptures where the limbs had fallen off through the wear and tear of time. The sculpture was globally recognized and also drew great attention to the plinth itself.

Currently on show is project ‘One and Other’ by British sculptor Anthony Gormley. For 100 days, a different person, 24 hours a day, will be given free reign to entertain, inform or just sit and contemplate their navel in front of the people of London. (We feel sorry for the girl who happened to be up there during the almighty storm last week, and we’re crossing our fingers for dry weather this afternoon…) Gormley’s aim is to elevate every day life to a position normally occupied by monumental art.

One UK exhibitionist and general good egg, Russell Tanner happened to be picked at random from the thousands of applicants. Continuing the theme of collaboration and the internet providing, it was via Twitter that Simon and Russell made contact. Simon had for a long time, been eager to get a giant aidpod onto the 4th plinth and Russell was in possession of an hour on the plinth with no firm ideas on how to use it. The rest as they say, is Twitter history!

So, how did we find out about all of this? Well, Simon uses MOO Business Cards as promotional material to spread the word about Colalife. You can read his blog post about them here.

The story behind the pictures on the cards is another example of the collaborative nature of Colalife. While Simon was running the Facebook group, someone else (Kate Andrews) set up a ColaLife Flickr Group. The photos on the cards come from various people but the large majority come from Tielman Nieuwoudta, a logistics consultant in Vietnam. He and Simon have never met, but have since become friends via conversations on Skype. His partner, a public health expert, has also assisted with the ColaLife Business Plan.

Simon, his friends and collaborators, will be handing out their Colalife Business Cards and answering questions, at Trafalgar Square, this Friday 3-4pm. So if you’re free, please do come along and show your support. (Be there or be uncharitably square :)

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You’re so vain, I bet you think this URL is about you…

July 2009, by Simon G | 3 Comments Latest by Will Baxter

Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and Flickr all have something in common (and it isn’t their fancy Californian offices). No, it’s the vanity URL.

Earlier this year Google announced they’d allow Google profile users to specify the URL for their profile, just as Facebook released their vanity URLs around one month ago.

Facebook launched their vanity URLs at 00:01am on 13th June (that was 5:01am GMT), and yes, I was the lucky member of the UK MOO Crew awake at 5:01am GMT to register www.facebook.com/moocards for MOO. But what is all the fuss about?

For big brands it may have been the fear that the www.facebook.com/coca-cola URL could have been hijacked by a competitor, or by someone with an ‘interesting’ sense of humour.

Protecting your brand has become increasingly important in a world where an online identity is as important as a physical one. If you’re not a big brand, it’s still pretty important to register your vanity URL.

For some people, their Facebook page is the face of their business, their Flickr photostream is their online portfolio and their LinkedIn profile their virtual CV. With the ability to link each of these to each other, through a single URL you can create a single touch-point for your online ID.

Most people include their email address, their phone number (and sometimes) their physical address on their Business Cards. At some point though, most people change their email address, their phone number and (almost certainly) their physical address. With a static vanity URL you can point people to one place and change all the details on it… So why not include your vanity URL on your Business Cards?

Using MOO’s ‘text-o-matic’ tools you could use your vanity URL to inspire your designs, or upload your own photos and include your URL on the reverse, just as you would with any other important detail. Here’s a few I made earlier, using the text tools with Business Cards.

3 Comments

The Story of Jack’s Rounded-Cornered Business Cards

July 2009, by Lisa | 33 Comments Latest by Richard Petersen

Recently, Toby, one of the MOO Crew’s developers, had the pleasure of meeting Jack Hooker. In usual fashion, Jack gave Toby one of his business cards . All of us back at MOO Studios were very impressed with Jack’s cards and excited to find out that Jack had made his cards with MOO. So, we asked San Sharma* to find out a bit more about Jack and the story behind his cards for our business ideas section.

We couldn’t wait for Jack’s story to go live in our ideas section so we’ve shared it as a sneak peak here on our blog. Here’s what San discovered…

Jack Hooker is a freelance graphic designer, working from a social collaborative space in
Lewes, East Sussex. Co-working, he says, gives him the chance to meet other creative professionals – and with his MOO Business Cards he makes sure that everybody knows Jack!


Jack uploaded complete designs for the front and back of his MOO Business Cards in four variations based on illustrations of himself – as the Jack in a pack of playing cards.

As a freelancer, Jack is used to appearing in different guises. He works for a number of design agencies and private clients, on projects as diverse as packaging, print and promotions. He also designs for newmedia, creating sites for bands and brands.

In fact, Jack got the idea for his business cards at The Farm, where he found that many people were already using MOO for themselves. “I saw that you could have different designs on the back of each card,” he said. “So, I emailed MOO to see if my idea was do-able and they replied, explaining how to use the PDF uploader on their website. It was easy!”

Jack then used a corner cutter to round the edges off his Business Cards so that they looked more like playing cards. “The response I’ve had from the cards has been great,” he said. “If I give one out at an event, I often get two or three more people asking if they can have one too!”

The cards are a perfect way to show off Jack’s creativity, as a master of his trade, without breaking the bank. “They’re very affordable,” Jack says. “And MOO offers small print runs too – perfect for trying out new ideas to see how they’ll look, and what kind of response they’ll get.” And, as a conversation piece, they’re an ideal ice-breaker, especially if you’re a nervous networker!

Jack played his cards right by using MOO. As a freelancer, first impressions are everything, and with these cards, Jack’s always sure to have a winning hand.

*Interview & Post by San Sharma. San helped create Enterprise Nation, the UK home business website, in 2006. He was its Creative Director for four years and editor of its Technology channel. He now helps people and companies make things work better, on paper and on screen, as a writer, designer and Social Media Consultant.

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