The fundamental rule of good business card design is to be certain that it accurately reflects your brand and company image. Your business card doesn’t just communicate your contact information. It also sends an instant message about your business and is a direct representation of your brand. It must match the look and feel of your logo design, and it should be unique to your business.
Today, anyone can log on to a free do it yourself logo and business card design site, but that doesn’t mean those sites will enable you to make an amazing logo or business card. In other words, not all do it yourself logo design and business card design sites are equal, and the old adage, “you get what you pay for,” is usually true.
Before you start thinking about using an online logo or business card creator, you need to understand what makes a great logo and business card. That’s why I created the 1-Minute Business Card Design Quiz. Just answer the questions in the quiz to learn if your existing business card or the business card you’re considering designing and printing is helping or hurting your brand and business.
Your business card and logo design have to work together to communicate your brand image. Many do it yourself logo design sites provide templates, so you can quickly drop your logo and contact information into pre-designed business card templates. However, those templates may not match your logo, business, brand or industry. They might even give more prominence to template elements such as stock photography than they give to your logo and contact information. Your brand identity should take center stage on your business card.
Instead of making your logo gigantic on your business card, make it smaller and surround it with white space so it stands out. This is far more effective than making your logo huge. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some Fortune 500 business cards. The logo is almost always small and surrounded by white space.
Your business card is not an area of your marketing plan where you should try to save money. It’s a critical component of your brand and business building efforts. Therefore, don’t choose a cheap paper stock that makes your brand and business look cheap by association. Instead, appeal to the sense of touch, which plays an important role in memory recall, and use a quality paper stock that matches your brand and business’ reputation.
Color is one of the most important factors of memory recall, but too much color is overwhelming and confusing. The best logos and matching business cards stick to one or two primary brand colors. It’s also less expensive to print fewer colors, so you get two benefits from reducing the number of colors you use in your logo and business card designs.
It can be tempting to choose a highly unusual design for your business card in order to stand out from the crowd, but proceed with caution. Unusual business card designs can have the opposite effect you want and actually turn people off from your brand. These people simply can’t wrap their brains around your bizarre business card. Unusual business card designs can also be impractical. A plastic card might seem like a great idea, but what happens when a potential client wants to write a note on the back of your card? They can’t write on plastic. Similarly, you can’t fit an oddly-shaped business card in your wallet or business card holder. People you give your business cards to won’t know where to put them and might lose them if they don’t “fit.” Of course, if your industry or brand warrants an unusual business card, then these negative implications might not be as important to you as appearing to be innovative is. That’s a decision that only you can make by balancing the pros and cons as they relate to your business and brand.
Results: If you answered “no” to one or more of the questions in the 1-Minute Business Card Design Quiz, then you need to go back to the drawing board. You only get one chance to make a first and lasting impression. Don’t cheapen yours. If you take the time to create an effective business logo and business card, you’ll have greater success at building your brand and your business.
