Photos a New Touch : Singles Use Cards to Break the Ice

In Victorian days, a proper gentleman hoping to impress a young lady would drop his calling card on the silver tray in the front hall of her house.

These days, a guy like Lloyd Eric Cotsen is more apt to slap his card down on the bar in front of a woman.

Cotsen’s card, however, promises he’s every bit the gentleman that his great-grandfather was. It pictures him wielding a sword and proclaims him to be an “Old Fashioned Hero.” On its back, it promises that Cotsen is prepared to rescue women both from overly aggressive pursuers and from “dullsville.”

Popularity Among Singles

The 25-year-old Westwood computer system designer is one of a growing number of singles who are restoring social status to the calling card.

The new cards are color photos trimmed down to 3 1/2-by-2-inch business-card size. They have messages superimposed, television style, in white printing beneath their pictures.

“It doesn’t do all the work for you, but it’s a good conversation opener,” Cotsen said as he visited Friday’s, a Warner Center singles bar, last week armed with a pocketful of cards. “It definitely breaks the ice. And it helps girls remember you later on.”

Business cards with pictures on them aren’t new. Real estate agents anxious to be remembered have for years handed out printed cards that bear tiny lithographed portraits.

Business cards printed on photographic paper were pioneered in 1960 by the Eastman Kodak Co. Its cards have formal-looking, 1 1/8-by-1 5/8-inch color photos of employees on the left side and names, titles and addresses in white areas on the right. Kodak markets similarly designed cards for other firms from its Rochester, N.Y., lab, according to a Kodak spokesman.

But development of the all-picture business card didn’t come until photo-finishing labs began popping up five years ago in malls and shopping centers. Film processors turned to other types of services when competition picked up.

Since then, the cost of photo cards has dropped by about two thirds--to as little as 17 cents a card, according to Tracy Russek, manager of a Woodland Hills company that sells 1,000 picture cards for $169.

Smaller orders cost about 37 cents each, although Russek’s V.I.P. Images has begun giving a 2-cent-per-card discount to individuals buying “singles” cards in batches of 200.

Nonetheless, the price usually leads to the cards’ careful distribution.

“I don’t hand them out willy-nilly,” said Vicki Giraud, an Agoura Hills advertising agency owner whose business card is a close-up photo of her smiling face. “Last night at the 19th Hole bar at the Westlake Village Golf Course I only gave away one card. That was certainly enough--the man I gave it to was certainly more than enough.”

Giraud, who described herself as a “39ish” divorcee, said she also uses her cards when responding to personal ads in singles magazines.

“Since I’m single, I’m social. The cards spark interest, even if sometimes it’s interest that I don’t want. But people are visually oriented. It boils down to selling yourself in a pleasant, visual way.”

Manicurist Tracy Martin lists her nail salon on her card, which shows her clad in a mink coat and smiling alluringly into the camera.

‘You Pretend It’s Business’

“I pass them out kind of in a sly way. You pretend it’s business, but really it’s personal,” said Martin, 26, of Los Angeles. She said she is planning to order new cards that show her semi-nude, albeit carefully posed.

Body builder Douglas Penick is likewise barely clad in his business card photo. Its full-length picture shows off his biceps and advertises his Los Angeles masseur’s service.

“The card blows people away,” Penick, 30, said. “In bars, women basically want to touch you and see if the muscles are real. I’ve been in situations where ladies came up to me and started taking off my clothes. It was great. That’s what the card will do for you.”

Penick, who worked as a masseur last year for Olympic athletes, traded his cards for Olympic pins. By the end of the Games, his pin collection totaled 800, he said.

David Butler, an air-freight company salesman, calculates that more than half of the thousand cards he has distributed over the last two years have been for “personal or social contacts.” His picture shows him standing, smilingly, in front of his office.

“I’ve been known to send over a rose with my business card attached when I’ve spotted a cute girl in a restaurant,” said Butler, 29, of Manhattan Beach. “Nowadays, you just don’t get girls’ phone numbers, they get yours, too. The nice part is no one throws them away--it’s better than a name on a napkin.”

Carlos Armas, a physician’s assistant at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, said he at first purchased his business cards to give to his emergency-room patients. But he said the photo, which shows him standing in a white coat outside his office, is well-received at parties, too.

“I’ve been pretty successful with these cards. I see someone I want to meet and give her a card. It definitely helps,” said Armas, who is 43 and divorced.

Hard to Draw Line

“It’s hard to define where the social part of the card begins and the business part ends,” agreed North Hollywood life insurance salesman David Bloomfield. His card is a waist-level photo of him standing with arms crossed in front of an eye-catching blue background. His name and phone number are in small print over the blue.

“My wife and I like to camp out overnight at the beach and we’ll stroll up and down the water and meet people and I’ll give them my card,” said Bloomfield, 63. “The card is super-impressive. People are absolutely shocked. I’m not single, but I can see how these cards would be popular with people who are.”

At Friday’s, Cotsen’s sword-fighter card drew good reviews from single women seated last week at the busy Woodland Hills bar.

“It’s obnoxious and stupid. But we liked it,” Laurie Freter said, laughing. Freter, a 21-year-old shoe store manager from Thousand Oaks was there with a girlfriend, Kelly Molchan, 22, also of Thousand Oaks. “We might use it sometime if we need to be ‘rescued.’ ”

Tracy Winer, 23, a fashion store clerk from Northridge, said it would take more than a business card to win a date from her.

“But it’s better than the other lines, like ‘Don’t I know you from someplace?’ ” Winer said.