What makes a good business card?
Do you know what makes a business card effective?
Is it originality? Is it legibility or simplicity? Perhaps it’s how your card prompts the recipient into contacting you. A clean, uncluttered design shows that you care about appearance and in my opinion immediately sends out a professional vibe.
First and foremost, your card must clearly show your contact details. Before anything else that’s the number one priority. Even if your card is poorly designed, it must allow people to contact you. That’s kind of a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many cards hide the contact info away behind some over-indulged colour scheme or illegible typeface.
Size deserves a mention. If your card doesn’t fit into a holder or wallet it’s not likely to be kept close-at-hand.
Should your promotional piece have a gimmick? Here’s an example of how some cards aren’t printed on actual card stock.
It belongs to Poul Nielsen, a certified personal trainer and fitness consultant in Toronto, Canada. Just reading Poul’s name and job title is a light workout in itself! From his website photo Poul looks like a top, friendly bloke. It’s a shame his online personal trainer presence isn’t as unique as his stretchy business card.
I contacted Poul to ask if there was anything printed on the reverse, and there isn’t.
You want your contact details to be obvious without any catch. I have divided loyalties with this card. It’s original, fits excellently within the industry, but it doesn’t make the information apparent at first glance. What happens if the prospective client only has one arm, or is missing thumb? Of course he could always hand this card out personally and have a back-up for such occurences.
How much do you think conventions should be challenged and does it depend on the industry?
Take a funeral director for instance. I tried to think of a profession where you want to be subtle in your sales pitch. Being subtle doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice good design for a ‘plain Jane’ finish.
A funeral director wants to sell his / her most expensive headstone or coffin. Why not print the card with a subtle marble or oak-effect behind the text? Gloss laminate the substrate for a smooth finish perhaps?
Mark Boulton was recently asked, “What makes a good business card?” and he wasn’t so sure about his response. His readers make some interesting points in the comment section of that post.
One commenter, Zach Inglis, thinks your business card should be, “Clean, crisp, readable, rememberable.” He makes a good summary, even though I’m sure he meant ‘memorable’.
I came across this post about cartoons on business cards. For me, this one depends on the message of the cartoon and the industry being designed for. There were some nice examples though and I’ve shown a few below.
For those interested, I posted a while back about the process behind my own personal business card.
Terry Tolleson beleives that a business card should (at the very least) have three elements on it (in order of importance):
1/ Contact information
2/ Company name
3/ Visual identifier for the company (a logo for instance)
Terry goes on to say:
Regardless how flashy or clever your card is, if contact information is not readily available, or quickly processed, the card failed. What does it matter if someone remembered some neat trick the card does or how nice it looked if they find a hint of difficulty acquiring your information from it.
I’d agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the stretchy card shown above.
What I’d love to see are examples of your own business cards. Do you have links you could post to them? If you like you could always send me some photos and I’ll add them to a new showcase article. ‘My readers’ business cards’ - I’d like that.
You can find other posts relating to business cards in my business cards category (oddly enough).
Thanks to ubergizmo and Random Good Stuff for bringing the stretchy business card to my attention. Credit to Anthony for letting me know about the cartoons on cards.
Related posts on this site
22 spot-on reader comments to “What makes a good business card?”
What are your thoughts?
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“Never begin… (top right) - that’s a lot better.
Now, if only the search box was up there as well (just pulling your leg).
Thanks for dropping in.
I think it depends on the person. I like simplicity. Someone at my old job gave me their business card because I loved the simplicity and how it is just absolutely gorgeous even though its plain jane, just the colours left an impression of her good taste *she was an interior designer*
I hope I didn’t confuse ‘plain Jane’ with simplicity. For me, the best cards are simple.
This is timely. I was just thinking about making a card.
First time commenting. I really dig your blog… saw your link from LogoPond. But yea… I think business cards can be designed as complex or as simple as you want them, just make sure the contact info is readily there and easy to read. I’m actually in the process of designing a new version for my stationary so this was a good read.
PG, thanks for visiting, and for your comment. I checked out your portfolio which I think is very diverse. Some excellent work there! Similar to Beth, I’d love to see your finished identity.
David,
Here’s the link to my business card. This is for the videography company run by my wife and myself. We don’t consider ourself designers in the sense that you are, but we do design videos for people. Let me know what you think. BTW we designed the site as well.
http://www.adoraproductions.com/media/adora_card.gif
Taking a look at your card the first thing that struck me was the margin use on the contact info side. To give you an idea of how to make better use of margins I spent a minute rearranging your own contact elements.
I hope you don’t mind.
I personally like a business card you can keep with other business cards. The Poul card is “cute” and the concept fits with his profession but I can’t put it in my rolodex or a wallet. Well, I’m sure I could but it wouldn’t be quite as easy as a standard business card.
Nice work PG!
David,
Thanks! I can see the difference now that you point it out to me.
Like I said, I’m not really a designer, but I enjoy good design and I’ve started reading a lot of design blogs, such as yours, so I can learn more.
Thanks for taking the time to help!
That’s exactly what I meant David, thanks for updating me.
Interesting idea David!
Here is another interesting way to make money with your business cards that you may not have thought of!
For me, I ended turning it into a revenue stream, because I knew there had to be a way to take advantage of the millions of business cards out there. It’s a strong concept to generate leads. Here it is…worth a quick look freecard.com
Dean
It’s real good to go through your website. I am just designing a logo and business card for my college portfolio. Even I like the clean finish of the card but the most important is the contact info which should be delivered rightly and I agree with you on that.
Thanks for your comments, and good luck with your business card endeavours.
Business cards will be different for the different audiences it is intended for. Also, how much information that is on the card depends on how much your customers know about your service. I turned my business card into a compact brochure to tell people HOW useful my services could be.
Do you have an example of your card online? I’d like to have a look.
Hi David,
I’ve just been to your website and I really am amazed at how much information you have on your site because I’m just learning to do this in my class.
Any thoughts on the pros & cons of having a photo on a business card?
Glad to be of any help possible. Good luck with your class.
Sara,
Pro: People remember what you look like.
Con: People remember what you look like.
If you’re good-looking, or have a nice smile, fantastic. If you’re a minger, probably best to leave the photo off.
The business cards! A world of communication!
I think that we must have 2 type of business cards.
One for work, for business: with name company, and all data of our company and our. An elegant and sober business card,
Another business card for our free time, with name and telephon number. In this case we can make a business card original, and particular. Without limits!
For our privacy is better, so.
This is one of my business cards:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3286/2969175768_86fb569a04.jpg