{"id":962,"date":"2012-05-29T09:47:13","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T13:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.equipmentlink.org\/blog\/?p=962"},"modified":"2012-05-29T09:47:13","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T13:47:13","slug":"braille-business-cards-5292012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.equipmentlink.org\/blog\/?p=962","title":{"rendered":"Braille Business Cards, 5\/29\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Braille Business Cards<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone likes Braille business cards.\u00a0 Sighted people think they’re cool and blind people obviously find them useful. The word to keep in mind when thinking of getting your business cards Brailled is “compromise”.<\/p>\n

On your average printed business card, you can have a ton of information.\u00a0 In addition to a corporate logo, a QR code and your business name,there could be a few phone numbers, a contact person, an e-mail address, and\u00a0a Website address–let’s not forget your physical address\u00a0 and possibly your Grand Mother’s\u00a0 cookie recipe.\u00a0 Alas, there will be no Brailled cookie recipe, and that tactile version of your logo, probably not happening either.<\/p>\n

The standard business card can hold a very small amount of Brailled information.\u00a0 Specifically, 4 lines of 13 characters each. So, it boils down to what you can fit into 52 characters.\u00a0 Generally, this is some combination of a name, either personal or corporate (rarely both), a phone number and a Web address.\u00a0 Of the half dozen different cards I just checked, only 1 had an e-mail address.\u00a0 Two of them had local and toll-free numbers and none of them had the title of the individual who just handed me their card.<\/p>\n

The good news is that there are no rules.\u00a0 A Braille reader understands these limitations, and hence will understand why some of the niceties, such as the extra Braille characters designating capitalization or the abbreviation of a company name to just a few letters is necessary. If your ego can handle the strain, perhaps consider just this once, using Bob instead of Robert.<\/p>\n

If you don’t know Braille yourself, it’s good to have a quick sanity check from a Braille reader.\u00a0 I have seen many business cards with mistakes.\u00a0 Sometimes it’s formatting, other times it can be a spelling error which looks terribly unprofessional.\u00a0 Then there are those problems which show up in communication.\u00a0 Your “theatre” could become a “theater” and you might find you’ve been handing out faulty cards for the last 6 months.\u00a0 Many Braille services can be found online.\u00a0 It’s best to talk with someone, double check and have the final product thoroughly examined.<\/p>\n

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