Old Business Cards


I recently came across a few old business cards I designed back in 1999. The first ones were for my services as a saxophone player:

A few notes:

  • I went mostly by “Matthew” then.
  • At some point I decided to remove the home address and say that I was available to play not just alto saxophone but baritone, tenor, and soprano as well.
  • The number was the home shared house number, not a cell phone.
  • The email was an email address the entire family shared, under my dad’s name.
  • HAL-PC was an amazing non-profit local to Houston that stood for the “Houston Area League of PC users.” There was a pretty reasonable annual membership fee, and they hosted a monthly general meeting which had hundreds of attendees, always with a presentation or two and a raffle giveaway at the end. They were a dial-up ISP and BBS/newsgroup host. I volunteered for them by going in on Saturdays where they had a room people could bring their broken computers to and get free tech support, and by hosting a SIG, or special-interest group, around PalmOS called HPUG, the Houston Palm Users Group. This was a big part of the inspiration for WordCamps.

This was for my “design” business:


I would also design business cards for friends, here’s one for my friend who was a percussionist and vibraphonist, Chase Jordan: 

9 thoughts on “Old Business Cards

  1. I have a big smile on my face. Thanks for sharing the cards, context, and some WP history. I was wondering what to do with my old cards. A blog post, of course. 🙂

  2. Really enjoyed this, Matt, love how those early cards reflect not just creativity but also community spirit. The HAL-PC and HPUG stories are especially inspiring, showing how small volunteer efforts can grow into something as impactful as WordCamps.

  3. I love that you shared these. They are great and I can see that touch of Matt in them. Sometimes I wish I had saved a visual archive of all my business cards since the 1980’s.

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