As a graphic designer for a printing company, a lot of my work involves coming up with new and innovative business card ideas. Business cards are a fantastic marketing tool that most new businesses overlook. Over the last few years I have seen some of the most innovative and unique design ideas guaranteed to make a great impression.
Inspiration
The best way to find inspiration is to take in to account your current style of marketing materials, including your website and company logo. If your website is artistic and full of colour, you should try to illustrate this on your business card.
For the more minimalistic and simple websites, you should pay close attention to the fine design. Perhaps invest in high quality printing effects like engraving and embossing.
Remember, your business card is a mini portfolio of your work so it’s important you let your personal style shine through to impress those potential business clients. The sky is the limit when it comes to design, from colours to die cutting so you can be as creative as you like.
Information
The most common mistake made on business cards is the amount of information included. Always keep in mind the primary function of your card is for potential clients and customers to easily obtain your contact information. There is no need for you to include everything, remember less is always more!
You should use the following:
- Company name
- General details of what your company does
- Phone number
- Email
- Website URL
If you use social media to target business, always include your facebook/twitter username. Chances are customers will want to know a little more about you before contacting you, so this will give them immediate access to whom you are and who you interact with.
Innovation
Following are my favourite five examples that run the gambit from scalloped edges and elaborate die cutting, to one that is intended to be planted in the ground. Always keep in mind the message you want to portray to potential customers. Distinctive cards mean that you are about to get noticed and gain business!
One of my new clients recently inspired me to write this one. She has started up a new business and wanted an original professional logo design but didn’t want to pay the usual graphic design fees.
She chose and paid for a new and exclusive logo design at bestlookinglogos.com for $50. And then customized her own colour choices for an extra $10. Here it is:
Then she wanted some business cards designed and printed with her new logo incorporated. She was able to have the same professional designer who designed her logo, design her business cards to suit and have 1000 printed for $179 – all inclusive of new artwork. Here is what she had to say about the process and outcome..
“Thanks again for your great service, I just need to explain to my graphic designer client why I didn’t go with them for this but they certainly wouldn’t have been able to provide me with my new identity and business cards for under $250. I am sure you will hear from me again.”
And here is her business card design as it turned out:
For more information on the same service and price contact Twilight Emerald Print Design anytime.
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
I found an interesting article written recently suggesting that with the future on the internet with the digital age, that good old fashioned hard copy business cards may become obsolete. Click here for more.
So they suggest that google is the new business card, but is it? If you’ve just met a potential client for the first time, will they remember your name in order to google you? Would they go to the trouble even if they did?
I don’t deny for a second that the internet is a powerful way to advertise you and your business, but it has its place. There are still plenty of other relevant media. And a business card in the hand can say so much about your business, it’s traits and your personality. Not to mention reminding the potential client you just met of who you are, when they pull it our of their wallet or pocket again.
Most google listings will consist of a few lines of basic arial font, blue and black text. A hard copy business card, with its stock texture and quality, its colours, its images, its logo and stylised fonts says so much more about you and gives you the chance to portray exactly the customized image and level of quality that you want to portray. I can’t think of a single business who would do without their business cards. Even small start-up businesses who can’t afford anything else will have a basic business card to give out to people they meet.
Can a website replace a business card? Again I would say, they have to remember your url first, and having your website address printed on a business card to hand out is invaluable in this respect.
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
Traditionally the one colour business card has been the cheapest and simplest option for business card printing. These days however with such cheap prices available for cmyk full colour print it is not always the most popular option for a cheap card.
A lot of smaller offset print shops may still only have a single colour printing press though, so they would still suggest that is their cheapest option for a business card print.
In my opinion you can still get a great look with a single colour card. And as you can pick out a particular pantone ink, you can always rely on your colour printing the same with each different print run – which is not often the case with cmyk. Another advantage of spot colour printing is seen with large solid areas of colour. You will get a much cleaner and more professional finish when using a pantone or ‘spot’ colour.
If you have a logo in a particular colour and you want to reinforce you brand with a particular defining colour, you will definitely want to use a spot colour to achieve this.
In my business if I want someone to do spot colour printing, most often being one or two colour print, I use Jamek Printing
(I also designed their website). They are a small but very reliable printing business that achieve a great result, and I set up a lot of their artwork as well.
The ‘chooko’ business card as shown above is an example of a car printed single sided, single colour (pantone 485) red. This utilizes a lot of solid area so certainly best suited for a pantone spot colour.
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
