For tattoo artists

A convention hall has no signal. Your card should.

Two days on a convention floor produces a hundred conversations, forty Instagram handles you will never match to a face, and a signal bar that has been empty since ten in the morning. Cardr hands over a card that opens offline and takes their details back so the list survives the weekend.

Tattooing runs on a booking queue, and the queue is filled at conventions and guest spots. Both are places with terrible signal and no quiet moment, and both leave you with a pile of Instagram handles you cannot attach to a design or a body part by Monday. Cardr gives out a card that opens with no reception, returns their name and what they asked about into a list you can search, and drafts the message that opens your books to them.

The real scene

A hall of concrete, and four thousand phones.

Everyone in the building is on the same three cell towers. Nothing loads. That is the constraint nobody designs for.

Where it happens

The convention floor

Everyone in the building is on the same three cell towers. Nothing loads. That is the constraint nobody designs for.

  • No signal A convention hall is concrete, windowless and four thousand phones deep. Anything that has to load does not.
  • Forty handles Two days of conversations arrive as Instagram names you cannot match to a design or a body part by Monday.
  • No quiet moment You are working the whole weekend. Whatever the handover is, it happens between two lines.

Every constraint above is what decides the format. A card that fails any one of the three does not get used a second time, however good it looks.

Convention centres are the worst signal environment most people ever hand a card out in: dense concrete, no windows, and several thousand phones competing for the same capacity. Any digital card that is only a web page fails there, at the exact moment it is being used.

An Apple Wallet pass is already on the device once it has been added, so it opens with the bars at zero. That is not a marginal advantage in a hall like that. It is the difference between the card working and you apologising while somebody watches a spinner.

The other half is the list. Forty people asked about a piece, and by Monday you have forty handles and no idea which one wanted the forearm blackwork. A note against the name, taken in the moment, is the whole difference between a booked queue and a DM you never answer.

The card itself

What it looks like on the phone.

Not a mock-up. The artwork below is drawn by the same function that draws the inside of the signed .pkpass file, in the same colours the real pass carries, so this is what Wallet shows.

Cardr UpdatedToday
MarlaQuinn
StyleBlackwork, fine line
BooksOpen March

cardr.co/marla-quinn

Scan or tap to savei
An example card in the oxblood design. The holder is invented; the rendering is not. All eight designs are on Pro, three on the free plan.
What you get

For the floor, the guest spot and the deposit.

  • It opens with no reception. The pass lives on their phone rather than being fetched from ours, which is what makes it work in a hall where nothing else does.
  • Their details, not their handle. The exchange returns a real name and a real contact rather than an @ you have to search for later.
  • The piece, attached to the person. Notes and tags on Pro, so “forearm blackwork, healing an old cover-up, back in March” sits on the contact instead of in your head.
  • Deposit and booking terms on the card. Point a link at your booking form or your terms so the answer to “how does it work” is on the thing you just handed them.
  • Guest spots without a reprint. Change the shop, the city and the dates on the card and everyone holding it sees where you are this month.
  • Instagram where it belongs. One tap to the portfolio, from a card that also survives Instagram deciding to change something.
Questions

Tattoo artists, answered.

Will it work at a convention with no signal?

Your pass will, because Apple Wallet stores it on your device rather than fetching it. The person scanning your QR code does need enough signal to load the page once, which in a bad hall can be the bottleneck. The pattern that works is showing the pass, taking their details through the exchange, and letting them add yours later when they are outside.

Can I put my deposit terms on it?

Yes. Any link type can point wherever you want, so a booking form, a terms page or an enquiry form all work. Everything you add sits on the back of the pass, which is where the links live and where there is no practical limit on how many you have.

Does it replace Instagram?

No, and it should not try to. It gives you something Instagram does not: a contact list you own, with your notes on it, that still exists if your account is disabled or the algorithm stops showing your work. Put your Instagram on the card and keep both.

What about guest spots in another city?

Edit the card with the shop and dates and every client who saved it sees the update on their phone. That is more reliable than a story that disappears in a day, and it reaches the people who already want to be tattooed by you rather than the ones the algorithm picks.

What does it cost?

The card, the pass, the QR code and the two-way exchange are free forever with no card details taken. Pro is £12 a month, or £9 billed annually, and adds the searchable list with notes and tags, the drafted messages and the reminders. Sixty-day money back guarantee.

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