Packaging cards

The domain name here, metcaffeination.net, is a made-up name. When I tell people I have a blog, or that I have a site with new picture each day of my son, I need to make sure the offer the domain name in writing, because its spelling is not obvious. I decided, recently, to make up some cards with the domain name, so I could hand them out like business cards.

I chose two different styles: the first, which I ordered from eInvite, are simple: the domain name, my name, and my email address. They had sufficiently robust online design tools so that I could get the type of card I had imagined without worry that fonts wouldn’t be imbedded or that some other problem associated with emailing a PDF wouldn’t happen. And I am quite pleased with the cards.

The second ones were photo cards, to promote the Matthew Picture of the Day. I wanted full-color photos on these, with the website url. For these, I went with Moo‘s mini-cards, which seem to be the favorite of hipster digital designer types. These, too, came out well. 

I got 100 of each, which for business-size cards is a small order. But I’d like to compare the packaging that each company sent my cards in.

First, the photo mini-cards. One hundred of them, in a small box, in a modest padded envelope:

The standard cards came in a corrugated cardboard box, half of which was taken up by packing material and the other half of which contained a smaller box: 

Opening the smaller box revealed a fractal-like pattern: half of the smaller box was taken up by packing material, and half contained a smaller box:

Inside this third box were, finally, the cards. But half of the inside of the third box was also taken up by packing material:

To illustrate the amount of empty space that was shipped to me, here are the cards shown inside the outer-most shipping box: