The first impression a potential customer has of your business is your business card. It is important that it convey the proper image, and be noticeable.
Your business card is a representation of YOU and your company,and can set the stage for your future interactions with your clients.
However, one thing many people do not realize is that design objectives for a business card vary.
If you are in Corporate America, your business card design should feature your company logo, tagline (see my blog for more on taglines), and pertinent information. There are many examples of cards to be seen, but the most effective ones for large corporations or traditional industry have lots of blank space and look very "clean". The information needed is clearly presented and easy to read. Standard fonts convey solidity, and are familiar to the public. Corporate colors are reinforced on the face of the card.
However, I have learned the hard way that these rules do not apply for small business. I started out our construction company with a nice, clean corporate design. It was very professional, and nicely done. Our colors are red, blue and white - and the name on the card as well as our tagline was done in a red standard font. The background was white.
I had many people lose our business cards and ask for new ones. I also found when following up with customers I hadn't heard from in sometime that they would have called us, but couldn't find our card.
If you are in a small business that serves consumers, your customers are not going to have nicely organized Roledexes to keep their cards. You need a design that can stand out above the clutter on their desk, or in their junk drawer. This calls for bold colors and bright graphics that would be considered inappropriate in a corporate context.
I just redesigned ours to feature a bold blue box with white text for our names and contact information, and pictures of our construction work on the sides.
It helps to have a graphic element that clearly depicts your work. Ours is a picture of framing, and a picture of a house to convey successful home construction. Make sure it is high quality - cheap clip art looks, well, cheap!
If you are in an industry such as music or art, your card needs to be more unusual in nature to convey your uniqueness. These fields demand that you differentiate yourself from the corporate crowd to show your creativity.
No matter what industry you are in, stay away from the cheap printable cards. These always show perforations on the edges or where you snapped them from the precut paper and are very thin.
Good quality card stock shows that you are serious about your business.
This is a mistake many startups make, and then wonder why the VC community didn't see them as serious contenders.
The choice of matte vs glossy is a personal one, but to me, the matte finished cards always look more professional.
Avoid a "too busy" look even if you are trying to design an attention-getting card. If you have one busy graphic, keep the other ones simple in nature.
Differentiate your name in some way by using bold text or a different color. You want your name to stand out, after all, it is YOUR business card!
www.vistaprint.com is a great place to design and order high quality cards. If you have a design issue, the customer service people are very helpful in fixing it.
If you are in a hurry, your local Kinkos personnel can also help you. They also offer design services.
