At social events, I often found myself receiving visit-cards from other people, and I was repeatedly suggested that I should make one.
A visit card is a small form of professional introduction. It allows an encounter to persist after two people separate: I can put it in my pocket, find it later, remember the person who gave it to me and perhaps contact them. Or it can remain at the bottom of my bag for months until, detached from the encounter that gave it meaning, I eventually throw it away.

I began thinking about the exchange of a visit card as a kind of professional handshake. Both mark an introduction, but they operate differently. A visit card can be produced in advance, handed over and passively received. A handshake cannot. One person can offer a hand, but another person has to respond. The gesture exists only through the temporary participation of both bodies. I therefore did not want simply to design a visit card that represented an introduction. I wanted the recipient to participate in making the introduction itself.

My boyfriend had been nagging me for some time that I should make a visit card. At networking events, people were always giving me theirs, so perhaps he had a point. I would take the card, put it in my purse, and carry a small piece of that encounter home with me. A visit card is a professional introduction made into an object. Someone gives me their name, occupation, email address, perhaps a website. I can keep it. Days or months later, I might find it again, remember the person, look them up and contact them. In that sense, the card allows an introduction to continue after the encounter has ended.

Or nothing happens. It stays at the bottom of my purse among receipts and other forgotten things. Eventually I find it again without quite remembering the encounter that gave it meaning, and I throw it away. There was something strange to me about an object intended to say this is me, remember me becoming so easily detached from the person who gave it to me.

Visit card is somewhat like a professional handshake. But a handshake behaves differently.

I can give someone my card and they can simply take it. I cannot give someone a handshake in the same way. I can extend my hand, but another person has to extend theirs. We meet somewhere between us. Pressure comes from both sides. If one person moves, the other adjusts. For those few seconds, the gesture exists only because both people are participating in it. I did not want to make a visit card that simply represented a handshake. I wanted to make an introduction that behaved more like one.