So my credit card is due for a replacement, given that the magnetic stripe has been cut in half 40% through the card, and the chip is developing a personality as well. Not to mention the fact that the card more ore less is shaped like the profile of a banana.
My bank offers the option to get a personalized card - woohoo, I thought - just the thing for a graphics artist like myself.
Obviously there are some understandable restrictions - like if there's people on the image you submit, they have to approve, and you can't use other peoples copyrighted material, and no profanity and obscene stuff. All good. So I start preparing some of my best graphics, submit it and get excited about how cool it will be when I use my new card publicly, that there's a big, green fly with a rotary engine from a plane on it. The next day I get an email saying it has been rejected. So I call the bank, and ask them why, and get the answer that it looked like some kind of professional product shot (/me takes a bow). I then explain that it is done entirely by me, and this is what I do for a living (although rarely flies with engines are involved). They say ok - we'll just send you a form to fill out, where you can state that you're the legal copyright holder of the work. Form arrives, I sign and return it, excitement level rises again. 2 days later, another rejection mail. I call the bank, and now all of a sudden they do not accept anything that has been made on the computer. WTF?!
In the following days, I send various scanned photos that get rejected as well for various (stupid) reasons. My last attempt is a picture of the sunset taken from Hume Highway in Australia 2000, which IS pretty, but I wanted COOL.
So personalized card, MY ASS!! Sure I was at Hume Highway, but so was probably 1000 people, and so is probably a 1000 people every single day. It doesn't get more personalized than a piece of graphics you did yourself, does it? It is obviously less acceptable, just because it wasn't done by an infant with greasy fingers and head-to-toe veggie mash covering and presented to the overly joyfull parent.
Stupid, stupid, stupid...
- and in the meantime I have to listen to "Looks like you need a new card, mister" every other day... O RLY??!?
