So you think you can business card
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011When thinking about which direction you should go with your printed business card design there are a few things to take into consideration about your business card before you rush in and start laying the card out. One thing I see a lot is a lot of people get lost in the actual design of the business card before they have thought about what they need the card to function as. This is fine if all you need is a business card that looks great and a lot of the time a business card like this will function just fine but there are a lot of times where pretty alone isn’t functional and the aim is to get both, a great looking business card that also serves all the tasks you might need it to.
Some functions to take into consideration that might or might not apply to your particular business card are:
1. Lets work out what the most important elements or information are that you need your business card to convey and work from there down to make sure they are the most prominent in the end design.
2. Maybe you will need to have an area on the reverse side of your card that you can jot down information for individual clients, like arrangement dates etc.
3. Are you paying for a double sided printed business card or single. If its double you have more freedom but maybe you want to save on money and just print one side. If so remember this from the start and try to limit the amount of information you place on that one side. Remember a cluttered design not only looks bad but makes your business card harder to decipher and this is an obstruction for your customer.
I want to now talk about the look and feel of the business card. Lets try to make sure if your company has a colour scheme that we try to correlate your new business card with your existing business colours. So often I see people design a business card that doesn’t correspond with their company and website and this just serves to lessen the appearance of your professionalism.
Take into consideration your company colour scheme, most companies have one and its based usually in the colours of their logo and then continued onto the other forms of marketing e.g websites etc. Your business card is no different and should also reflect this colour scheme keeping in line with all your other forms of media.
The finish of your business card is also something to take into consideration, matte finishes also known as silk finishes give a sophisticated feel to your business card that suite some companies and don’t suit others.
Gloss finish business cards just like matte or silk card suit only some companies and its up to you to work out where your company sits and what business card finish is best for you.
Finally the size of your business card, this is not as important as the other topics we have covered but none the less something to take into consideration all the same. The different dimensions of business cards are rather similar, this is due to the fact that they must fit into a wallet or purse so they cant be too big or too small but you will find some business cards are slimmer than others and this is a nice dimension for a sophisticated card especially if you finish it in matte but once again this is something you need to work out for your company individually.
Now maybe you want to go for a business card that is a little on the fancy side, if so here are just a few of your options you might want to consider.
1. Foil cards look great and cost close to the same as regular business cards.
2. Die cut business cards – these look great and you can do some really creative things with the design when you have control of the shape.
3. Sticker business cards- I have seen this quite often and is another gimmick that works well and you know where ever they stick it it will stay and double up as advertising.
4. Magnet business cards- small magnet business cards are great for business’s like plumbers etc where you want your add on the clients fridge.
5. If you have digital media maybe you want to consider getting a cd-rom business card. These are great and while they might be a bit more expensive they make up for that by being impressive and also storing more media for your client.
Good luck with your business card design, I hope this has helped and your business card design becomes functional as well as aesthetically pleasing.
Its not rocket science but you still have to think about yourbusiness card and how it will work for you

