While often deeply immersed in the digital vortex we call life, it’s hard to ignore the eye catching, flashy memes, kitten clips and life fails also known as the GIF (pronounced Jif, like the peanut butter). With more hi-res video options offered by social media providers, it’s a wonder why we still cling to our pixelated, mediocre-quality friend.

Earlier this year, Twitter announced the release of GIF Search, where users can search, or browse Twitter’s GIF library when composing a tweet. “You can search by keyword, or browse categories of different reactions like Happy Dance, Mic Drop, or YOLO.”

Image source: https://blog.twitter.com/2016/introducing-gif-search-on-twitter

Twitter is not the first to adopt this new integration of old technology. Other platforms like Slack, Tinder and Facebook Messenger are also offering means to connect via celebrity memes and cat clips.

So when asked to write a blog post about one of our most recent projects, I naturally responded. “Can we make it into GIFs?” So here we are friends, a long interlude into how we printed some pretty awesome business cards for our recent rebrand to Switchboard Public Relations, in GIFS.

The GIF is 27 years old. That’s 29 years younger than this letterpress that is creating our business cards.

We chose the letterpress process as it illustrates the story behind our brand. The term switchboard refers to interconnected circuits, connecting users to each other. It is an old technology and timeless concept, much like what you are seeing here.

The front of each card is digitally printed, boosting the colour to show off our new vibrant gradient. With new technology on the front and an timeless technology on the back, our business cards are the physical reflection of what we do. We are using the newest technologies with traditional methods that work to connect people, brands and communities.

Shout out to Kaldor who did a phenomenal job helping us rebrand and design these business cards. If we were to describe the work that you do in a GIF, it would look like this…