(Sound of mic bump, coffee mug being set down heavily, a weary sigh)
Alright. So I was on the internet the other day, shocker, I know, and I was trying to find this illustrator friend of mine. She does these incredible, weird little drawings of anxious birds. Like, sparrows with mortgages. It’s genius. And I go to her Instagram, and it’s all the birds, which is great, but her bio link says “Linktree.” So I click it.
And it’s a list. It’s a list of links. It’s like a digital ransom note. “Link to my Etsy,” “link to my Patreon,” “link to my newsletter where I talk about bird news,” “link to my YouTube where I paint,” “link to my tattoo aftercare PDF.” It’s… a lot. It’s chaotic. And I’m sitting there, a grown man with my own well-documented anxiety, and I think, “This is how we lose people. This is the digital equivalent of mumbling.”
It got me thinking. Artists. Authors. You people. You make these beautiful, coherent, thoughtful things. You spend a year on a novel, a month on a painting, a week on a song. And then you send people into a spreadsheet to figure out who you are and what you do? Come on.
So let me talk to you about this thing called Carrd. It’s not new. The cool kids probably found it years ago and are already bored with it. But I’m not a cool kid, I’m a resentful adult in my “office”, and I’m telling you: you need this.
Forget building a “website.” That word sounds like you need to call your nephew who knows “code.” Carrd is a digital business card. A landing pad. A single, beautiful, focused page. You get one link. YourName.carrd.co. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Here’s the benefit, and I’m gonna frame this in terms of your fragile creative psyche:
1. It Forces You to Have a Point. You can’t have 17 pages. You have ONE PAGE. You have to decide: What’s the most important thing? Is it the book? Show the book cover, a blistering one-line review, and the “Buy Now” link. Is it your art? Make it a gorgeous gallery that doesn’t require 12 clicks. This isn’t a constraint; it’s a cure for your indecision. It’s therapy. You’re welcome.
2. It Looks Like You Didn’t Try That Hard (When You Actually Did). The templates are slick. They’re minimalist. You drag and drop your stuff in,your text, your image, a link to your YouTube, your email, and suddenly it looks professional. It looks intentional. It says, “I am a person who makes things, and here is how you engage with those things, without the emotional labour of navigating my entire inner world.”
3. It’s for the Lazy Clicker (Which is Everyone, Including You). People are busy wondering if they’re hungry or just bored. They don’t have time for your multi-level sitemap. They click your Carrd link from Instagram. In eight seconds, they see: a) What you do, b) Your best work, c) How to buy it or follow you. Decision made. You either got a fan or you didn’t. It’s efficient. It’s merciful.
4. It’s Free. (The Best Price for a Broke Creative). The free tier lets you build a perfect, fully functional single-page site. You can pay later if you need a custom domain (like YourName.com), which you should, but you can start for the cost of nothing. That’s less than your monthly subscription to the streaming service you use to avoid writing.
Look, I get it. You want the world to see the sprawling, complex universe of your work. But you gotta meet them at the door. You gotta be the host who says, “Coat rack’s here, drinks are there, the thing you came to see is right this way.” Not the host who just yells a list of room names from the kitchen.
A Carrd is your coat rack. It’s simple. It’s clean. It lets people get past the hallway and into the party—which is your actual art.
Now go build one. It’ll take 4 to 5 minutes. And then you can get back to your real work: making stuff and being quietly furious about everything else.
Okay. That’s it. I gotta go stare out the window and question my life choices. Talk to you later.
If you found this useful, then you might be interested in my book “Digital Marketing for Creatives” – it’s over on Amazon and its aim is to get creatives marketing effectively so they can spend more time making that creative thing they make and not losing hours doing marketing. You can find it here.
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Digital Marketing for Creatives 
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