Business Cards

So I spent an hour racking my brains last night on a redesign. Like I said before, this is more of a personal corporate identity campaign (matching business cards).

No matter what I did, I couldn't get off of using a dark background. That's NOT where I wanted to go.

So I flipped through my sketchbook and ran smack into my Pathogen pages.

Pathogen is another piece of "The Project." Without diving too deep into it, it's software that I wrote which models what happens when people come together and interact. This is visualized as an undulating wave of lines, icons, and binary numbers.

Now that I finished the visualization, I can run experiments on this simulated "forum." With an analogy stolen directly from Seth Godin's ideavirus, I "infect" one of the population with an incredible, mind-blowing thought. This is the kind of idea which eats away a person's every spare moment... something which she cannot stop thinking about. She dreams of the applications of the idea. She knows that with care and feeding, if she capitalized on the initial brainstorm, she will change the world forever.

More importantly, it's the kind of idea that she isn't greedy over. She needs to share. In fact, the only way she can crystalize her thoughts is by communicating her idea to others.

Back to Pathogen: When the experiment runs, I model how quickly her contagious thoughts permeate the population.. I vary the environment to see what factors hinder the spread of her incredible revolution.

Regardless of the pseudo-science I'm performing, the end result is a very beautiful display of colors and forms... The look is light and airy- definitely not dark and ominous doom and gloom.

Precisely the kind of thing which would look stellar on a business card.

So I will need to change up my software and fudge some of the math and outputs, but I think I'll have something suitable soon.

Since meetup, is in essence, a forum for people to come together and share ideas, it's a wonder that Pathogen didn't pop into my head immediately.

I thought it would be interesting to see if the card I give away could be more than just a personal marketing tool. Mike and I spoke on the phone about how the giveaway needed to be something that people wouldn't just toss in the trash.

I've figured out a way to make the card more of a momento; it will be a receipt that yes, we made a connection at a particular event on a particular day.