what I should be doing is Actual Work. Either for work or on my book. But what I spent far too long on instead is designing business cards for nationals.

Now, I have a very specific reason for going to Nationals this year, even though I’m in an extremely odd position (even if I wanted to, I couldn’t accept an offer of publication until midway through 2008–don’t ask, I can’t explain). I want to learn about agents and maybe editors. I want to talk to them. I want to see who I like and who I click with and, well, who I don’t. So that when I can query agents, I have a good idea who to go for.

And so I want a business card that’s clean, uncluttered, and memorable. So I spent some time dithering around all the many, many sites that offer business cards at astonishingly low prices.

I hated them all fervently.

I finally found a place that used ink rather than toner, gave reasonable paper choices (look, I’m picky), let me pay extra for bleeds (graphics and text near the edge of the card) and allowed me near infinite control over exact placement of elements: you can rotate and move the elements by minute fractions. Yay, control.

I’ve hit on a basic design. Now it’s just a question of color choice. For that, I open the matter up to you, dear readers. The burgundy design is definitely more romantic. But I also like turquoise, and the gold (that is supposed to be gold) is very cool.

Which has your vote?

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EDIT: Adding, by popular demand:

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