Business cards are a very complex and personal thing. Your business card needs to work hard to grab the attention of its recipient whilst imparting the information that you want it to impart. And, it has to do these things in a style that it is inline with the style that you hope to project personally and professionally. A business card has to reflect you and work for you. Get your business card right, use it correctly, and you will reap the rewards. Get your business card wrong and it will end up with millions of others in waste paper baskets all over the world.
One of my many tasks for the new year is to create a press and publicity pack for Upstart Blogger and my other projects. In total I will have five press packs, one for each of the four main projects I have for 2009 and one general pack that can be used as a publicity umbrella.
Earlier this week I mentioned my desire to bring all my projects into line, in a cohesive online structure that would allow anyone hitting any of my blogs to instantly recognize the brand. Personal branding is one of the ways that I will link my projects together and something I will go into detail about as things develop.
For now, however, I would like to talk about how I designed a business card for Upstart Blogger in under an hour whilst enjoying my daily fix of caffeine this morning.
I started, as many millions of people do, by searching the web for inspirational business card designs. This search lead me through the inevitable slew of awful looking stock designs and the equally awful and endless list of Digg posts with titles like ‘killer business card designs’ and ’101 business card designs you have to see’.
Happily, I found a blog called oh my God it even has a watermark which, as its American Psycho inspired name suggests, is a showcase for just the sort of inspirational business card designs I was looking for. One thing struck my immediately. The most memorable cards were the simplest ones. Of course, there were business cards in various amusing shapes and sizes, some which were ingenious and some which were, frankly, too clever for their own good, but the ones that really stood out were the cards that imparted the information in a simple, stylish and effective way.
It occurred to me that as a blogger my number one aim was to get people to visit my blog. And, as that thought buzzed around my brain a light bulb appeared above my head.
The only information a blogger needs on their business card is their name and the address of their blog.
No telephone number, no physical address, no witty tag line and certainly no photograph. Superfluousness is the enemy when it comes to imparting information, especially when you only have a small piece of card as your delivery system.
The important thing to remember is that if your business is online then you number one priority should be to get people to visit your business online. If you are a blogger then your card has one aim. And that aim is to get people to visit your blog. Everything else just clouds the issue and gets in the way.
It then occurred to me that I could use a double sided card with my name on one side and my blog address on the other. I would design a different card for each of my projects, all of which would have the same basic design. The only difference between the cards, other than the blog address, would be the choice of font which would, obviously enough, match the font used for that specific blog. All of my projects are based online and are all blog powered.
My choice of fonts and reasons for choosing them, like my thoughts on personal branding, will be shared and hopefully discussed once all four projects are up and running. If everything goes to plan this will be before the end of January 2009.
I then fired up Photoshop and in a very short space of time I had the first two cards finished and ready to send to the print house of my choice. The other two will follow once the designs have been finalized for the other two projects.
And here they are, in all their minimalist glory, front followed by back and then again for the second card.
I’ll order some once the other two cards have been designed and take some photographs so you can see how they look as a physical product. Furthermore, if you have a business card that you are particularly proud of then feel free to leave a link to it in a comment below.
Ashley, as an art director I hope you didn’t choose a black background for your card.
That was a no-no that I would often tell clients to avoid. Think about it, if people meet you and need to take a quick note, you can offer them one of your business cards to take a note on…their pen will most often use blue or black ink. With a black background their note is not going to be readable, and your card is headed for the trash.
I would often suggest that clients that wanted a minimalistic approach only put their name and web address on one side of the card, while the flip side offered a ton of whitespace for any sudden note taking, perhaps only offering the sub-heading of their blog/website.
The same overall design could work, but I’d suggest (with upstartblogger.com) you keep the background white and keep the equivalent CMYK color for ‘upstartblogger.com’ that you use on the site. That would be true branding. On the flip side I’d put ‘Ashley Morgan’ in small type in a corner, leaving the rest of the card available for jottting down your number, or for the potential contact to write a quick note.
Best of luck!
Happy New Year, Ashley!
I was thinking about creating some calling cards in just the same way – ultra minimalist. You might be interested in looking at http://themandatepress.com – they have some nice letterpress business/calling cards for very reasonable prices. I’m interested to see how yours turn out – black can sometimes be a hard color to get just right. Are you thinking matte or gloss?
what about using both sides of a business card to print my two websites which happen to be within the same industry?
travelwires.com is a travel and tourism blog
and
accommodate.co.za is a lodging and car rentals booking portal.
I’m really a big fan of simple typography, which is used to good effect here. All the information anyone would need from your business card.
To often people try to cram too much information onto their card which spoils the design of the card and is less memorable. As for your card, there is only really one thing you need to remember and thats the web address.
Bravo I say.
Ooh. I wonder what the typefaces are—I know the first one’s Lulabin Giraffe or whatever it’s called, but the second one? Do tell!
Upstarty – Funnily enough the choice of a black background was deliberate. I wanted to prevent anything from getting in the way of the single piece of information that is being pushed. As crazy as it may seem, I don’t want everyone who has my business card to call me. I agree with your statement about branding and matching the CMYK. And that’s something I will do before the cards get sent to print. However, the current Upstart Blogger palette may change in the very near future so I need to get all of that worked out before I commit anything to press. I’ve been reading your blog today, nice title and a great back story.
Eli – Happy New Year! Thanks, I’ll check them out. I’m leaning heavily towards a matt finish.
Muzi – Yes, that would work, but I think it’s a good idea to have your name on your card somewhere.
Mark – Sounds like we are on the same wavelength, glad you like the design.
Josh – You make me laugh, you should go into comedy writing! You’re correct, the first is Lulabin Giraffe (Lubalin Graph). The second is Soho Gothic Pro.
Indeed Ashley, each side would carry the logo (which is the url) and my full name.
Hi Ashley – the one thing I would say is that these look more like a flyer than a business card. Surely the aim of the business card would be to get your personal details to someone? Or maybe it’s a mini-flyer to kill two birds with one stone… :-)
I have always liked the white-on-black business cards. Looks sharp!
I have recently come to a similar conclusion about my business card design. As I was setting up my site, I looked for business card designs. There are some amazing ones out there, but I want something simple and straight-forward and memorable.
Since I’m on a limited budget, my card will be white with black print, have my website, my name, and my email address. I want it to be simple to contact me, and not involve the extra step of having to go to my site and find my email address.
I love it great concept – too bad I did not read this till after I had my new cards were made
The best is to have your picture (your very own face) on one side and your domain on the flipside. So they’ll always remember who you were on that party or where they met you ;-)