Creating a Great Business Card
Your business card is like a micro-brochure. It should not only give your contact information, but tell/show what you do. It should be attractive, colorful and unique to you.
Business cards are very inexpensive to print these days. The cost is in the design and layout. Doing some homework before we meet will save you money and time and help ensure that you get a card you’ll be proud to hand out. Let’s get started!
1. LOGO: If you have a logo, please email it to me. A good logo can give you a more professional look, make you stand out from your competitors, and help your customers and clients remember you. Well designed, your logo conveys the image you want to present to your target market.
If you don’t have a logo, don’t worry. If you operate as an individual such as a psychologist, a tutor or interior designer, and you use your own name rather than a business name, you may not need a logo. You may, however, want to choose a distinctive font and color to use for your name on your business cards, website and other marketing materials.
There are thousands of fonts to choose from. Go to www.fontscape.com and browse for fonts you like. There is even an area on this site where you can type in your name and see what it looks like in that font. The font you choose should reflect the image you want to convey to potential clients. An attorney or CPA, for example, would choose a strong, serious-looking font and color such as deep blue, gray or black. A party planner or comedian could use a whimsical font in a warm color, while a massage therapist might choose an elegant font in a cool calming color.
While you may not be considering doing or re-doing a website right now, you’ll want to visualize how your chosen font would look as part of your website header. Considering all your marketing even if you’re only creating a card right now will ensure that you have a consistent look when you are ready to do brochures, flyers, or even a website.
A word of caution: The font you use must be very readable even when it's printed in 9 or 10 point size for your cards.
2. COLORS: Now comes the fun part, selecting your colors.
Choosing colors is a bit of an art. If you’re an attorney, like one of my clients, you’ll want to use stronger colors. Softer colors work well if you’re a massage therapist. An artist might use bold colors or soft colors depending on her style of art. Earthier colors might work well if you own a yoga studio. The colors you choose become a part of your brand and influence the way people think about you and your services.
Go to http://cloford.com/resources/colours/500col.htm There you will find a chart of web-based colors. Select the one or two that you would like to use for your business cards. Write down both the Hex number and the RGB numbers of the colors you like. I will translate it to the color number for print.
Colour Name / Col / Select a Colour / Hex / R / G / Bindian red / indian red / #B0171F / 176 / 23 / 31
Annette chose a sage green and eggplant color scheme for her cards. The asymmetrical color boxes add an artistic touch to what could otherwise be a boring card.
Again, it’s important to think about how these colors would look on a website or other marketing materials. Colors become part of your brand.
3. PICTURES: Pictures are optional. You may want to use a good image either or yourself or of something that helps tell what you do. Using a head shot of yourself could be important if you provide very personal services. It’s your choice.
Most of my clients do not want their own pictures on their business cards. One client chose to use the same pictures that she used on her website for her card because they illustrate clearly the three different things she does.
You can use your own pictures or professional pictures from a stock photography company like istock or dreamstime. These images are very inexpensive, usually only a couple of dollars each.
For images to be effective on a tiny business card, they can’t be too detailed.
To look for a specific image, go to www.istock.com. Log in as jbalian and use the password excoveries. I will set up a “lightbox” there for you with your name on it. You can search for photos by keywords of your choice such as “yoga” or “business.” Place any photos you like in your own lightbox.
4. Horizontal or Vertical? The default design is a horizontal card, but a well-designed vertical card can be effective too. Notice how we’ve used an image background and another image element in Katri’s cards.
5. Consider a Two-Sided Card. Two-sided cards (even color) cost very little more to print and offer you a place to explain what you do, provide a place to write appointment times for individual clients or reinforce/reflect design elements of your logo.
6. Fancier Cards. You can have rounded corners, a folded card or other options such as individual design elements. Costs vary with what you want to do. Often a well-designed simple card works best of all.
The more you know about what you want, the more efficiently we can work together to design a great card that will represent you well for years to come. I’m looking forward to working with you!
© Judith Balian, 2010