How to design a business card
Your business card is your most important communication tool. Not only does it give your customers the means to contact you, it serves as a vital promotional tool, advertising your business for as long as your customer possesses it.
More importantly, your business card is usually the first impression a customer will have of your business. A business card represents the ‘image’of your business. A poorly designed business card does your business a disservice, while a smart design shows your customer your professionalism, and the effort you place into promoting and building your business.
For these reasons its very important to take the time to create a great design for your business card. Below are some tips to great business card design.
What informations should you include?
Logo
A logo helps you establish your business identity. Your logo should be simple,clean and if it contains your business name, easy to read. Your business name should be placed close to your logo.
Tagline
A tag line is a short phrase which describes what your business does. e.g High quality print at low prices.
Your name
Your name reminds your customers that they are dealing with a person first and foremost rather than a business entity and allows you to build a more personal relationship with your customer.It is also useful to include your job title to indicate to the customer your involvement with the business.
Phone Numbers
Typically these are displayed in the order of Phone, Fax, Mobile. If your business deals with customers interstate or internationally be sure to include the appropriate area codes.
As more and more business is conducted over the internet, an email address becomes more important. Your email is a great way for customers to contact you after hours.
Website
If you have a website, by all means it should be on your business card. Your website acts as an extension of your business card, allowing you to communicate more information than you possibly could on a small piece of card.
List of services
This list should be kept short in order to avoid cluttering your card with too much information. List the products or services that best represent your business.
Putting it all together.
There are thousands of ways to put all this information together. Its mostly up to personal taste. However there are a few guidelines to follow to create an effective business card. A business card is an answer to a question. So the prominence of the various business card elements should be ordered by the importance of those questions.
The questions your customers ask your business card are:
- Who are you and what do you do?
- How do I contact you?
- Where can I find you?
If you follow this order, then your business name, logo and name of individual should be the most prominent element on your card. This means they should be in a larger font or in bold text or however you want to make it stand out.An important part of who you are is what you do. So your tagline should also be displayed prominently.
Your contact information is important it although it does not need to be displayed as prominently as your Name. This is because you have immediately captured your customers attention with who you are and what you do, and they can now look further to your contact details. Your contact details should be display in the order of how you would prefer to be contacted. If you are usually out on the road then your mobile should be the most prominent or if you mostly work through the internet then email should be most prominent.
If you expect your customers to visit you then your address should be as important as your contact details. Otherwise you might like to exclude it altogether or display a mailing address less prominently.
Graphic Design
Once you have established how you'll display the various information on your card you should focus on the look and feel of your business card. When designing the look and feel of your card you should consider colour, contrast, fonts and the layout.Most importanly any graphic elements should not interfere with your information.
You should first examine whether your business has an existing style.ie do you use a specific font or colour scheme when communicating your business graphically.If you do, it is important that the design of your business card is consistent with this style. This allows your to establish the identity of your business
Colour
Its important to choose your colour scheme wisely.Some colours clash with each other so you should focus on colours which compliment each other. A colour scheme generator can be found at www.colorsontheweb.com. Colour should be used efficiently. Too many colours and your design will look a mess. A few simple complimentary colours are usually enough.
Contrast
Contrast can be described as the difference between two colours.Black and white have a high contrast which makes black on white easy to read and vice versa. If your colour scheme includes a purple background for instance,it is better to use white text as it has a higher contrast than black text.
Fonts
A well chosen font can make your design stand out.Try to avoid using too many fonts as they will clash with each other. Most designs have a maximum of two fonts. A clean simple font for important contact information and a more exciting font for the business name
layout
The layout is simply the position of the different elements on the card. There are no strict rules however are few ideas to remember are to ensure there is enough space between the elements. This is important otherwise your card will look cluttered.