Folding Forum

After giving this “business card” idea quite a bit of thought, I have come up with a tentative design for the card. (None of this is set in concrete – just think of this as an initial “rough draft” or a starting point toward the final design. Also, this design is tentative pending the granting of permission from the Pande Group and Stanford University to use the FAH logo.) With those caveats out of the way, here is the design I have in mind.

<begin card design>

Front of Card:

The Stanford “Folding@Home” logo (graphic) will appear in the upper left quadrant on the front side of the card. (Alternatively, the logo might appear centered at the top of the card – space permitting.) Centered or immediately to the right of the logo will appear the following web site URL:

http://icrontic.com/files/team93/videos/foldflash2.html

Insert one blank line and then the following block of text will appear immediately below the icrontic.com “team 93” URL:

Stanford Medical School’s “Folding@Home” distributed computing project

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/HomePage

seeks to study and better understand protein folding dynamics and computational molecular biology to aid in the rational design of drugs and effective treatments in the fight against debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, influenza, the HIV virus, and many forms of cancer. We need you (and your home computer) to join the fight.

Back of Card:

The back of the card is pretty simple. Centered in the middle of the card will be the following four lines.

Alan C. Lawhon
(xxx) xxx-xxxx
[email protected]

Insert a blank line and then the following:

Code Number: <TBD>

<end card design>

The “Code Number” will be the team number (issued by the Pande Group)

I’ve decided to put my local contact details on the back of the card since what I really want people to focus on is the front of the card. The front of the card is where all the important information (including the web site URLs) will reside. The only thing that’s really important about the back of the card is the team number – which I will point out to people as I’m passing out the card.

I’m worried that the front of the card may be too “busy” (too much info and not enough space) but we’ll cross that bridge once I start working with the printer. (I’ve decided that I’m going to have these cards printed by the http://www.gotprint.net folks that mmonnin recommended. They have a staff of professional graphic artists who can help with card design, plus I’m not comfortable with trying to do it myself, so I would rather let more experienced “experts” help me with this. Also, their prices seem pretty reasonable, so I would rather go this route.) Most of the heavy work, (i.e. deciding what “message” to have the card convey), has already been done, so from here on out it’s mostly a matter of “tweaking” and aesthetics – making the final product look visually appealing. I figure the folks at “got print” are experts at tweaking.

Major Rethink Time:

It’s funny, but the more I think about this – and the more I consider the “form factor” problem of trying to get all this information onto a (very small) business card – the more I’m beginning to think that art_PlanetAMD64’s idea of going with an index card makes better sense. Quoting Art:

My idea is that instead of a business card (or in addition to a business card), there could be a larger card printed, that had enough information on it for the potential new folder to:

(1) Get enough information (including links) about FAH so they would want to join the project, and
(2) Give them the link to download and install the FAH software on their computer.

I’m afraid the amount of information I’m currently envisioning for the front of the card is simply too much for a standard size business card. Given that reality, Art’s idea is starting to make a lot of sense. Also, there’s no law or requirement that says this has to be a business card. As long as it’s visually appealing and grabs peoples’ attention, it doesn’t matter what size it is! One other thing: With a larger size card, we can move the “Code Number” to the front of the card (it’s just a single line) and eliminate me from the card altogether! (Maybe a larger size card is the way to go. Thanks Art!!)

Mod - Edited

I'm glad to be of some help, Alan. It just seemed to me that it was an impossible struggle to get enough information onto a regular business card. The potential new folder would still have to write down more details on something (like a napkin). Anything we can do to make the recruitment of new folders quicker and easier (on both sides) should help our cause.

Also, there's certainly no "one size fits all" mandate. We are all individuals, and whatever works for "you" (in the general sense) is what's right!

You could provide an intuitive URL to some webpage that gives the rest of the information.

Jesse_V wrote:You could provide an intuitive URL to some webpage that gives the rest of the information.

Jesse:

That's a good idea. The end of the icrontic.com flash video links to the FAH web site, so repeating the Folding@Home URL is redundant. I've read the Wikipedia Folding@Home web page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

If you take the time to read it all the way through, that web page has some really good information - combined with plenty of links to other good information. By placing the link to the flash video first, I'm hoping people will watch the video. The video is short (about two minutes) but effective - it really gets the point home in a way that grabs people's attention. I have a feeling if people watch that video, (despite the fact that it's a bit dated), the odds that they'll be motivated to learn more (and become new folders) greatly increases.

So maybe the best way to do this is to place the icrontic.com URL first and the Wikipedia FAH URL immediately below it, (just those two URLs should be sufficient), then a blank line followed by the text of the message - that saves one or two lines of space - and then another blank line followed by the [team] "Code Number" line. (This is still a work in progress, but we're getting there.)

What I'm unsure about, (I really don't have a clue), is the background and color scheme of the card. A card with just the right mix and contrast of text, graphics, and color is very important. What I'm looking for is a design that makes a good visual impression, thus leading people into wanting to know more. That's the goal of a really good card - to pique people's interest.

OK, taking Art and Jesse's comments into account, here's the latest rewrite/revision.

<begin card design>

Front of Card:

The Stanford “Folding@Home” logo (graphic) will appear in the upper left quadrant on the front side of the card. (Alternatively, the logo might appear centered at the top of the card – space permitting.) Centered or immediately to the right of the logo will appear the following web site URLs:

http://icrontic.com/files/team93/videos/foldflash2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

Insert one blank line and then the following block of text will appear immediately below the icrontic.com and Wikipedia Folding@home URLs.

Stanford Medical School’s “Folding@Home” distributed computing project seeks to study and better understand protein folding dynamics and computational molecular biology to aid in the rational design of new drugs and effective treatments in the fight against debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, influenza, the HIV virus, and many forms of cancer. We need you (and your home computer) to join the fight.

Insert another blank line followed by:

Code Number: <TBD> (This will be our “Team Number”)

Back of Card:

After giving this more thought, I’m coming to the conclusion that the best option for the back of the card is to leave it blank. The back of the card is best left “clean” and available for jotting down notes or information – especially if a prospective donor has questions. If the front of the card does its job, there’s really no need to load up the back of the card.

<end card design>

Make your business cards out of this:
http://www.inquisitr.com/462263/intelli ... -of-paper/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... q83KSahRM#!

Probably will cost more than gotprint.com though. One site said 5.1MB of storage. Enough for a video and documents/links.

The Mormon Church hands out cards called Pass Along cards at a dimension of 3 1/8 inches by 4 5/8 inches. These cards are designed for passing out to people interested in the church and they might have done research on the size to make them in appealing dimensions. Just a thought.