Back in 2019, I attended a fair share of professional conferences and networking events. I brought a couple small problems to mind. One was that I often forgot to bring my business cards — or if I did remember to bring them, I ran out of the small supply I had with me. Another was that exchanging cards always felt wasteful to me. All these cards changing hands were eventually destined for the recycling bin or landfill.
I had the idea to build a small website where you could upload a photo of your business card, or design a digital one. The site would generate a QR code that other people could scan to “collect” your card (and hopefully also consider adopting the habit of using digital cards). I never got that far along into building it before 2020 came crashing in, and suddenly the mild annoyance I had around networking events was not such a priority for me. For what it’s worth, I suspect the culture of 名刺交換 (business card exchange) is too strong here in Japan for much to have come of it anyway.
But the idea of a digital business card still appeals to me. So I built one in PICO-8. I’m calling it my business cart! Hopefully people find it quirky and memorable.
Make your own
Will business carts catch on? Who knows. Probably not. But if it seems cool to you, you can make one too. Here’s how:
- Download the cart below to your PICO-8 folder
- Open the cart -
load business-cart.p8.png - Draw your logo and on contact details on the spritesheet
- Save it
That’s it!
I’m licensing it under CC BY 4.0.
