Is the Business Card Dead?

Artfest starts in 2 days yet I had to pack for it 2 weeks ago as I am accompanying my husband on a business trip prior to the event. It dawned on me the other day, that I had not brought any business cards. I thought briefly of going to a kinko's or someplace and get some generic cards made up but I didn't really want to spend the money to have some un-artistic cards made on the fly.

As I was walking around town, I found these stickers on sale...I bought a couple packs as I remembered I had brought some playing cards and thought I could stick them on the cards and make my own business cards but then that looked kinda cheesy.

so instead, I wrote my info on the back of the cards. and then treated the front as an ATC. (Artist Trading Card)

I had also brought a couple pages from an old book. I just cut out interesting parts of sentences...

along with cutting up some of my ephemera that I brought for art fest.

 ...and made up 30 individualized ATC/business cards....

they are random, kind of like fortune cookies....

 I would much rather receive one of these rather than a generic business card.

The next morning I opened the paper and here was one of the articles! It was saying how this next generation has a much more casual approach in general and how they are averse to paper and more digitally oriented and if they do get a business card it usually winds up in the trash or a big shoebox.

Business cards seem to be going the way of books, newspapers, video stores, etc. Kids can now "bump" their phones together to get each others contact information. 

I embrace technology, ie my blog...
yet I am of the previous generation...sigh...I still love paper.

ATC's

Here are the Artist Trading Cards I finished last night at the studio, they are a mixture of collage and acrylic paint and marker.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_trading_card:

Artist Trading Cards (or ATCs) are miniature works of art about the same size as modern baseball cards,^[1] or 2 ½ X 3 ½ inches (6cm X 9cm),^[2] small enough to fit inside standard card-collector pockets, sleeves or sheets.^[3] The ATC movement developed out of the mail art movement and has its origins in Switzerland.^[4] Cards are produced in various media, including dry media (pencils, pens, markers, etc), wet media (watercolor, acrylic paints, etc), paper media (in the form of collage, papercuts, found objects, etc). The cards are usually traded or exchanged rather than sold.