Looking for specific business card design and purpose feedback

I'm in or pretty close to your field, though not non-profit oriented, so things may be a little different in your industry. If you send in a business card with a resume, it's going in the trash. If you hand it to me after an interview, it's going in the trash. If I need your contact information, it's already in e-mails from you that I can pull up instantly. If it's handed to me at a convention or similar event, it's getting photographed, OCRed, and handed back. Things that make automated processing of the image harder makes me more likely to discard it. I am perhaps stodgy and no fun, but the glasses and Tetris designs makes me think of comic sans e-mails sent out by the boss's assistant in the late 90s. The Tetris one less so, but it's also harder for my brain to follow. Per jeoc's comment, I would be surprised to get a physical copy of a DevOps resume sent to me and perhaps hold it a little against them, as part of the role to me is automating all the things.

I personally think a well designed resume goes a longer way than a one-off card handed out to the interviewer. After all, they already have your contact info in front of them. It would be really weird to hand it to them again. I ALSO know a quirky or nerdy card is BETTER in the dev ops networking world. My husband's last job was Dev Ops and he's now a systems engineer and has gone to multiple conferences (including AWS in Vegas.) And, if you've been to networking stuff like that I'm sure you've seen the nerd-tastic t-shrits and swag that companies hand out. I think a quirky card would be MUCH more memorable when trying to network with people. I'd even consider a tech pun. I would actually remember you from it. Also, I'm in marketing so thinking from a marketing and design perspective, having one quirky card for networking and a well designed resume sounds like a better idea (and less expensive.) My husband just said "Yeah, they're nerds at those conferences. Don't give out a plain boring card." He enjoys talking to fun people at conferences. Memail me if you want to see the resume I've designed for him (in a IT field) and me (in a marketing field.) Edit: Yes, only bring a hard copy resume to an interview. Do not send one otherwise unless asked. But you can often upload or email a PDF.

I've never heard of giving out your card with a resume or after an interview. I think it's only appropriate when people don't already have your contact info. Other than that, while it's totally fine to have two different cards, I would just get one set of the quirkier style, personally. I wouldn't worry too much about scanability. Spring for the letterpress cards if you really love them.

I'll give you a different view. In 2015, no one keeps physical business cards anymore. I get handed a lot of business cards. Part of that is my role around IT purchasing, and part of it is running a medium sized development shop. For a long time now, my first instinct is to try and scan the card using my phone and then hand it back. When people hand me quirky cards - recently, a card printed on transparent plastic, another was printed on wood (bamboo?) - it sometimes screws up my phone's ability to OCR the card. So I dutifully stick the card in my card wallet, give it to my assistant to type in, and then she throws it away. It isn't that I don't appreciate someone who would think to get letterpress cards made, rather I'm getting ten to twenty cards a week and I'm not keeping a business card scrap book. I personally have two sets of cards: one is my business card, and one is a personal card which just has my personal email address and personal cell on it. The business card conforms to our corporate standard, nothing special there. For the personal card, it is standard sized, matte finish, super legible large font, square corners. If someone keeps it, great. But it is designed to be scanned, and priced to be thrown away.

In case I came off as too negative, the only way I think any of those designs would really hurt you is if you handed someone that defied OCRing them, so if you feel more happy and confident knowing that you're handing out interesting business cards, that boost of confidence might be worth the small cost. They just feel antiquated like yellow pages ads in the day and age of cloud computing etc. I've not had business business cards for five years now and the only people that have complained are salepeople that wanted my contact info to interrupt me.

I think you're overthinking it. Like someone who withholds their personality on a first date to not scare someone off. Be that person! One card that you feel great about, that expresses your geekiness, your personality, and your essential information. Everywhere you use it (which will almost certainly be fewer places than you imagine now. It always is) you'll feel good about the qualities expressed. I can't really imagine a context in the circles you're talking about where a "quirky" card will be a knock against you.

I'm hiring for tech roles in nonprofit right now, and I can't say a choice of card would matter one bit. I haven't gotten one in about five years. That said, I don't see any reason to not get something fun for conferences and networking.

Are there drawbacks to sending a quirky card with my resume or handing it out after interviews are over? Your "quirky" cards are not anywhere near quirky enough to mandate having two sets. I mean, if you want two sets because it pleases you, go for it but... Quirky business cards are things like tea bags, rubber bracelets, match books, etc. The Sheldon Cooper ones barely hit the bar for different and I would do those, with rounded edges, for all occasions.

Just a quick note, and sorry I was unclear. I'm currently in DevOps but am applying for lots of different tech-adjacent or tech specific roles in various non-profits and other industries. So my weird comment about bludgeoning folks over the head with my geekiness was meant to say that I might be talking with and interviewing with non-DevOps hiring managers, etc. Also, thank you for the offer to help with my resumes, I am also going to lots of resume clinics and workshops and so on, but I may also drop you a line, thank you Crystalinne.