4 Business Card Design Faux Pas
Are you proud of your business card? Do you think it’s the best designed card in the world? How many people have commented on the design of your card when they received it? If you’re like most people, no one has said a word. Although good design means different things to different people, designers can agree on the following 4 business card design mistakes. You should avoid these in designing your business cards and if your printed business cards contain one of these faux pas, seriously think about redesigning and printing new ones.
1. A cluttered business card: Appealing cards don’t use up every inch of the cardstock. People get overwhelmed when they see a lot of info in a small space. Too much print looks unprofessional. Keep the vital info – name, your title and company, address, email, Web site and phone numbers. If you have room, you can include a tagline. Use the back of the card if you’d like. Just be sure to leave some white space, which is a design term for empty space.
2. Small print: If people need a magnifying glass to read your name on your business card, it’s too small! Obviously, people aren’t going to take the time to squint their way into understanding your text. Don’t sacrifice readability just to get a tagline or extra info on your card. A good rule of thumb is to make your name 9 points in size, your company name 12 points, and the rest of the type no smaller than 7 points. Using a hierarchy of sizes will also help your design look clean and uncluttered.
3. Having a plain white card: White cardstock with black printing. How original! So many people use this format for a business card that if you do, yours will be hard to find in the sea of white. Make your card a nice cream cardstock, or gray, or go crazy and go for black or some other color that still fits your brand’s image. I love the colors of this card and the design is still simple with the bright blue.
4. Crazy shape: I actually like creative business cards that aren’t rectangles. They look good. But it can be a big design problem because then where do recipients put your card? If it doesn’t fit in a wallet, your business card has a much higher death rate (e.g., being thrown away). Rounded corners are okay because the card will still fit in a wallet or Rolodex, but beyond that you’re pushing it. This business card is almost pushing it, but I think it would still have a high “keeper” rate because it’s the traditional size with rounded corners.
If you wait to redesign and print new cards when your current stash runs out, will it be worth it to lose a few new clients along the way? Clients that you might have gotten if your business card had been more impressive? I don’t think so. Business cards are one of the cheapest marketing tools you’ll ever use, so think of new cards as an investment in your business.
Design Basics: Business Cards
In looking for something to represent your business, it’s only expected that you want it to look its best. Print advertisements, big or small, represent your company and should not be ignored. Yes, even if it comes in the smallest dimensions like your business card.
Not only is a business card going to be what people use to remember who you are, but quite often you’re actually there when you hand it to them. You’ll see that person look right down at your card and you’ll have to deal with whatever their reaction will be.
Here are some of the basic tenants of any high quality business card. I don’t plan to get into anything too fancy, and really, you can design your own business card with ease if you know all of the basics for what makes a card effective.
The first thing to look for is the information you plan on putting on your card. Ask yourself what you want people to know about you. Obviously your name should be on it, but what kind of contact info? Do you want a phone number, an email address, a fax number, maybe a building number? Maybe you have an office phone, a cell phone, and a home phone that you might consider using, or multiple email addresses that would all work.
Wouldn’t that be a little too much information? Probably. A good business card needs to be concise enough that people can just glance at it and get all of the information they need. The more complicated you make your cards, the less likely it will be that people will bother wanting to sort through the mess of information.
Figure out only the best pieces of information and that’s what you’re going to stick with.
Now, let’s talk about the design. If you have a company logo you definitely want to make sure that’s on your card. Any good logo shouldn’t be overly complicated or too colorful. Where you place the logo is up to you, but I’d say it would probably be best to keep it close to your name. A colorful logo will be the first thing someone looks at, which means your name will be the second if the logo is close enough to it.
When it comes to something like font type I would try to primarily stick to a single style. You could probably get away with two fonts, such as having your company name in a different font, but any more than that will make the card look messy.
Also remember that white space isn’t always a bad thing. Don’t try to fill your card up with too much info or too many pictures. Sometimes I like to be able to write something down on the back of my business cards. Why rob people of the ability?
All of these things can be handled and designed in something as simple as Adobe Photoshop. You don’t have to be an expert in design to make your print business cards look professional.
