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Archive for February 2010
A double-duty business card can be a good thing or a not-so-good thing. Below are two very specific examples of this.
- The good double-duty business card - Using your business card for more than just telling who you are and what you do. Print a coupon or special offer on the backs of your cards. Include them with invoices to current customers. If you offer a referral incentive, print it on the card.
- The not-so-good double-duty business card – Use your business card to focus on one business, not multiple. Someone whose card indicates they ‘do it all’ might be perceived as the infamous “Jack-of-all- Trades, Master of None.” This is especially true if you use the same business card for two or more different businesses (such as your part-time real estate business and your part-time computer repair business).
If you are trying to break into a specific specialty within the same business (such as newsletter design or Web design), design a separate business card to give to your target market. Depending on your business, you might want to have a fun card and a serious card.
Business cards serve many purposes but their primary purpose is to tell what you do and give the recipient a way to contact you.
At the very least a name and contact method (address or phone number) should go on your business card. As for where to put this information, there are hundreds of possible arrangements, but there are a few commonly accepted guidelines for where to place the most essential information.
Minimum Information for a Business Card
Other information is optional but as a minimum the business card should usually contain:
- Individual’s Name and/or Business Name
- Individual’s Title or some other descriptive text to indicate what the person does if it’s not obvious from the business name
- A way (preferrably multiple ways) to contact the person — could be phone, fax, email, web page, mailing address, street address, etc.
It is not necessary to but a complete listing of services or products on the business card. Keep it to the essentials. Use brochures and personal interviews to disclose the full range of services or products offered.
- Orientation – Horizontal layouts are the most typical, most widely used format for business cards.
- Name – Whether using a horizontal or vertical arrangement, the person’s name or the business name are usually the most prominent text item on the card. It is usually placed in the center or upper half of the card and emphasized with a larger or bolder font.
- Contact – Contact information is usually placed in the lower half of the card (left, right, or centered). The preferred method of contact (such as phone number or email) is often emphasized with a larger size, bolder font, or more prominent placement.
To create a “brand” for your company is to create your image, and to promote that image within your campaigns and marketing materials. Working in branding allows me to get involved with many aspects of your business, from logo design to advertising to slogans. The goal of a brand is to make a company unique and recognizable, and to project a desired image. Over time, a brand can make a company a household name, and identifiable by a simple shape or color. To create a brand for your company, I need to fully understand the goals of your organization, the industry as a whole, and will then create the appropriate materials to represent your company.
Here is a look at a business card I did for a client in Clive (suburb of Des Moines) Iowa. The client already had his card created by another vendor but I gave it a little update and then sent it on to my printer. We were both extremely satisfied with the final product and are now printing cards for the rest of the employees.
This logo was created for a new midwifery care business here in the Des Moines area. Their goal was to make sure women understood that they offered services for all ages. This logo was designed with that vision in mind. Showing how women of all ages (and sizes were used to represent that) are their target market.
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