As you probably know already, the brand is the sum of all experiences with a particular product or service which is building both reputation and future expectations of benefit.
Building your brand as a designer isn’t an easy task and you should be very careful about it because your image and your future income depend on it. One way of branding yourself is through a business card which isn’t just a calling card, but a snapshot of your brand.
People are aware that business cards tell a story and they are influenced by that story about you and your work. If you do it right, you will transmit the essence of your brand and it can be a sales piece, a mini ad for your services. However, if you fail at creating a good business card, yours will just be one of many that are forgotten or thrown in the garbage.
You should know, if you don’t already, that a memorable card creates a memorable brand. If you are the kind of person who goes at conferences or meets with various people you should have a memorable business card. The people that you are giving cards to already have dozens of them at the end of the day and you have to give them a reason to keep yours or remember you.
Most of the times, during a so called networking session a person will be unable to associate the faces of the people that he met with the business cards he received. Of those many cards, he will remember only a few which are standing out from the crowd.
Developing a great brand
A vital role in how a market perceives your brand is played by the mixture of colors, fonts and style. The visual elements of the brand need to be considered very carefully if you want them to have a positive impact on your potential clients.
The visual element that you should start with is color because it plays a big role in the decision that your potential clients will make. The colors that you choose will resonate and create an association with your brand.
The meaning of colors are generally the same, but they can be radically different in some places of the world, like the Asian countries. If the people that you are giving business cards to are from North America, Europe or Australia, then you should know the meaning of colors for your audience:
- Red: Passion, enthusiasm, energy
- Green: Success, growth, honesty
- Blue: Knowledge, loyalty, intelligence
- Yellow: Wisdom, optimism, joy
- Purple: Luxury, sophistication, nobility
- Orange: Creativity, vibrancy, activity
- Black: Power, authority, seriousness
- White: cleanliness, innocence, simplicity
Another element that is important in building your brand is the font selection. Fonts are important in establishing the brand image and promoting the brand personality. Each font has its unique way of generating an emotion and it is important to choose the right one for your audience.
For example, serif fonts have a serious style and can be used to transmit sophistication and strength. Sans-serif fonts are not perceived as serious as serif ones, but that doesn’t mean that they are frivolous. Instead their image that they are creating is sleek and modern.
There are people that are advocating for script or handwriting fonts and are stating that their usage on business cards delivers an interesting effect, but the truth is that a handwriting font will only make a business card harder to read.
Regular size or something totally different?
The standard size of business cards is 2″ x 3.5″ due to a lot of factors. People are generally conservative about the size of the card, especially because its size is recognizable as of a business card’s. The other reason for this size’s popularity is the lower price than of one’s with a strange shape.
If it is cheaper, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t opt for an ordinary one. On the contrary, you should better pay a little bit more to get a more interesting card. There are modern printing and cutting techniques that can deliver even the weirdest shape that you can think of.
Printing
It won’t come as a shock when I’ll tell you that digital printing is the most common way of printing business card these days, being done with inkjet technology or laser printers.
Besides the digital printing methods, there are also other interesting methods which could deliver a really good results. One way of printing cards is with the help of a letterpress. This can be a little bit expensive, but it creates an insanely beautiful effect that will surely be remembered by a person who is used to seeing a lot of flat cards.
Contact information
You should try making your business card uncluttered. To do this you will have to avoid adding unnecessary details like your address. Nobody cares about that anymore because you won’t receive physical mails and if a meeting would take place, details like the location will be discussed over phone. The necessary fields should be:
- Your name
- Phone number
- Website
There are people who manage to squeeze fields like twitter username or a slogan, but that is either being done on the back of the business card or by sacrificing the space between the elements.
Conclusion
Business cards are more than just your logo and contact information; they are a powerful, affordable way to build instant credibility. Stand out from the crowd and leave a lasting impression with a high-quality business card.
Among the many places where you can print your business cards, I recently found YouPrint and it looked like a good website where you can choose and customize a design without having to know Photoshop or Illustrator.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DesignResourceBox/~3/y3K8vAhP-y4/
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