There was a brief time period during which I worked primarily as a music journalist. It’s a fun industry and I was able to learn a lot of different things while doing the work. One of the lessons that really stuck with me is that you need to have a professional appearance when working even when you’re working in an alternative industry like the music world.

When I first started out at this job, I had business cards that I had designed and printed at home. These were flimsy paper cards with jagged edges where the perforated part had been torn. They were bright pink and had a cheesy slogan on them that I thought was cute. I handed them out liberally.

One of the people I handed them to was another music journalist, a veteran in the industry. In turn, he handed me back a CD-R business card. He had gotten a Disc Printer and used CD printing to decorate the outside of the business card with a graphic design logo. The CD labeling made the card look so professional. The fact that it was high tech helped, too.

I never did get CD-R business cards. I got out of doing music journalism and didn’t really see the need. But I did figure out that you need a professional appearance in everything that you do and the next set of business cards I got were ordered from a great printer!