06 ISSUE 01:
HERITAGE & INNOVATION
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Venture Beat labeled it, our “technology-focused times,” a reverse phenomenon emerged: people longed for the tactile, hand-to-hand exchange of something of permanence. Cards made people stand out with their personal design, sleek look, and their physical presence in an increasingly non-physical world.
WHERE NO CARD HAS GONE BEFORE The Biggest Social Networking Tool of All-Time? (Hint: You can design it yourself!) BY
EVAN PRICCO
Starting in 2004 in Shoreditch, London, Moross noticed a demand for physical exchanges in an increasingly digital world. MOO’s first product, the MiniCard, stood out because of its unique and thoughtful design: it was the width of a normal business card, but half as high. “When we decided to launch business cards, we were aware that it is a commodity product,” Moross has said. “We had to inject as much fun and design [as possible] to make it less commoditized.” The hard part was creating a user-based platform that would appeal to techies as well as casual users, just starting out in their own business ventures. MOO’s appeal is that they strike a chord with both groups, making them a leader in the business card field. H
Most of us in the vast universe that we call the “Business World” live a virtual existence. We communicate through our mobile devices via text, email, video chat, Instagram, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook—and surely by the time we finish this article there will be yet another platform that has changed the game of communication in the 21st Century. Actual face-to-face, human contact is becoming a rarity these days, and yet there is one physical component of our business lives that seems to be more relevant than ever. As small as it is, the business card has become a crucial piece of our identity. “[The business card] is the single biggest social networking tool of all time,” says Richard Moross, founder and CEO of MOO, an award winning, world-leader in online-print business that allows users to upload and design their own business cards, stationary, and stickers. “And it doesn’t require batteries.” MOO was founded on an ambitious but logical idea: “Making design accessible for people.” And for the past 9 years, MOO has given people products that will help them or their business look great. The business card as we know it has been around since the American Revolution, and prior to email addresses and mobile phone communication, was the most efficient way for colleagues and new business relationships to connect and create meaningful interactions. As the Internet became the primary platform for making contact in, as
“ The business card is 300 years old,” Moross told the FT. “It has not been displaced by mobiles, the Internet or Bluetooth—it’s here because it really works.” Even with business cards’ long history, MOO knows there is room for innovation. In 2012, MOO created one of the most ambitious business cards ever assembled, taking Mohawk Superfine paper, widely known as the finest digital printing paper on the market, and engineering a 4-layer business card, three times thicker than the average, with the ability to add strips of color in the center of each card. With the Luxe card’s exceptional printing quality, extra fine detailing, and thick, commanding presence, MOO once again changed the way we make exchanges in the business world. “ The more virtual our professional lives become, the more precious and intimate the physical world is to us,” Moross says. “Using mobile devices, I can beam you my telephone number any time. But that is not going to tell you much about me. It won’t say ‘what kind of design did I use?’ When you meet someone in ‘Second Life,’ it’s not real. You really get to see who that person is in that card. It’s something data transfer just can’t do.”