What to put as "contact info" on business cards?

xhi · Feb 2016

Of course this is about GDC lol. I work at a print shop and make tons of cards so I have a pretty good idea of what good and bad. However, I haven't really networked with other game artists or devs and I've never printed cards for them either. It's like a mystery to me.

For the contact information of course I have my name, email, portfolio, and phone number.

I'm wondering if it's inappropriate to put my artstation, twitch, twitter, instagram, linked in? I'm not famous on Twitch but I have a small following and often stream on Creative making 3d art. Maybe the artstation is redundant or would be bad if it shows unfinished pieces/aka ruin what my portfolio has?

Thanks for any tips or samples

ZacD · Feb 2016

Put anything you would want contacts to see and use. I'd try to keep it to your professional accounts. If your Twitter for example is just random thoughts, not art related, and might offend someone, don't put it on there.

Also try not to list more than about 4 different user names though.

MrHobo · Feb 2016

Id keep it relatively straightforward. Name, Phone or Email, Website, Artstation.
If people really want social media connections, relevant links should be available through your artstation and website.

Meloncov · Feb 2016

It's probably a good idea to include where you live (not necessarily full address, but at least which metro area), so that people can tell if you're local to them or not.

garcellano · Feb 2016

Yeah, name, title (ex. Character Artist, Environment Artist, etc.), email, website, maybe nearest metro area seems fine. I personally would remove phone numbers, just in case if you change it at some point (happened to me before, after I had some printed), and getting a random phonecall/text in any time/day after passing it around to a ton of people at an event can be unexpected (but it can be helpful, depends). Getting an email seems easier to have to gather what's going on, in my opinion.

Other social media stuff.. I'm not quite sure myself. Maybe just the ones you use often or that you're active in that's also art-related. Artstation seems fine. I just have icons on my card, instead of all the usernames in each site (ex. Linkedin, FB, Twitter, Polycount, Artstation). Not sure if there's a general rule for this, but I'm assuming just as long as you're not very political, or causing a huge rant on things, it should be ok.

Travis C · Feb 2016

What about buying your own domain name for your website? Are those a must have nowadays, since i hear hirers are too lazy (dont quote me on that) to type in more than like 10 letters? Or is just having an artstation or a behance enough?

RobeOmega · Feb 2016

@Travis C

Personally I recommend it since it cannot hurt and a URL with your name (e.g. www.harrybiggs.com as seen below) can help if people remember your name but not the potentially crazy URL you may have going on. If you have Artstation or Behance try to make an account that is as close to your name as possible so that people can find you easier without having to know your internet usernames.

Blaisoid · Feb 2016

call me old fashioned but if someone handed me a card with twitter or instagram on it I couldn't help but label them as typical modern kid who focuses on all the wrong things...

Two Listen · Feb 2016

I'm of the opinion that personal email + personal website is the way to go.

Yeah, you could put things like your artstation or other media usernames/sites on there, but then you risk getting into the type of scenario that happened with CGHub, where everybody had their CGHub profile on their business card and then it ceased to exist.

I guess it could be argued that any web hosting service or website runs the risk of closing at some point, but meh...at least with your own domain you don't have to worry about it quite as much. And there won't be any restructuring or redesigning of the website that could impact how people access your art without you doing it yourself.

beefaroni · Feb 2016

Yeah, you could put things like your artstation or other media usernames/sites on there, but then you risk getting into the type of scenario that happened with CGHub, where everybody had their CGHub profile on their business card and then it ceased to exist.

If someone wants to go this route just buy a domain name and hotlink it to your artstation. If anything happens to artstation just re-direct to another site.

xhi · Feb 2016

Thank you, everyone. I think I'm keeping it to my email, site, and email with visible links to other social media at the top of the site. (: I don't want to appear annoying with the other links on the card but had no idea what others put. Not sure what to do about a phone number though since I get a lot of spam already. Looking into good spam/block/caller id apps or using a google phone number. Id hate to answer spam calls hoping it's someone I care about. Maybe now's the time to change my number lol.

What to put as "contact info" on business cards?

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