A layered-cardstock business card with an embedded NFC chip that launches a contact profile on tap, fabricated on a Silhouette Cameo with precision-cut recessed layers to house the chip without altering the card's exterior dimensions.

Problem

Paper business cards are effectively write-once — the information on them is frozen the moment they're printed, and a recruiter has to manually re-enter anything they want to keep. Plastic NFC cards solve the information-update problem but feel generic and industrial. I wanted a card that did both: updatable contact data through NFC, retained the weight and texture of a real paper card, and looked like something a designer had made rather than something ordered from a template.

Role

Sole designer and fabricator.

Approach

Four layers of cardstock, each cut on a Silhouette Cameo. The middle two layers have a chip-sized window cut through them; the top and bottom layers are solid. Stacking the layers creates a recessed cavity that seats the NFC chip flush against the top layer's inner surface without any bulge on either exterior face. Adhesive applied layer-by-layer during assembly.

Chip writes to a vCard-format URL pointing to [NEED: the contact landing page location — your portfolio's /card route? A third-party service?]. Updating the landing page updates what every printed card resolves to, so an outdated card is still a working card.

The fabrication decision worth naming: I tried a single thicker cardstock with a partial-depth cut first, because it's a one-step process. The Cameo's depth control wasn't precise enough to consistently leave a clean cavity floor — some cards over-cut, some under-cut. Going to four thinner layers with through-cuts eliminated the depth variable entirely at the cost of an extra assembly step. The four-layer version has a near-100% yield; the single-layer version was under 60%.

Outcome

[NEED: quantity made, any notable responses when you've handed them out — this is the kind of project where the anecdote is the outcome].