4 Key Pointers to Killer Business Card Design

November 8th, 2011 by Ryan

Scheming up a great business card design can be a pretty intimidating endeavor to most professionals. For artists, it’s one of the few parts of the business world they find appealing; for accountants and most sales reps, it’s a responsibility they dread, or at best just a task to get done. Not everyone is a graphic designer, and not many more people can afford to hire one just for a business card. You don’t have to be a stellar artist, though, to come up with a successful and captivating card. You can create a killer business card design by just following a few of the following pointers.

1. Ensure your logo really pops. It isn’t hard to identify the logos that were made on photoshop in a couple of hours. They might be clean, but they’re soulless, and they don’t convince anyone that your business is unique. Read design blogs and study some of the most effective logos out there before you settle on one. It’s an integral part of your brand, and so it should be an integral part of your business card. Create or commission a logo that represents the tone and character of your business, whether that’s artistic, analytical, or dynamic.
2. Write creative copy. Like your logo, this is essential to great business card design, because it characterizes you and your business better than anything else. The benefit of double-sided printing for business cards is the ability to relay your professional information on one side and captivate a crowd on the other. Any business card should adhere to some tradition. Your name and contact information are essentials that can’t be ignored, but a quote, phrase, or single word will say a lot more about you. Make people laugh, scoff, or scratch their heads with your copy. Just come up with something that surprises them.
3. At least consider a spoof. How you craft your business card design is entirely personal, but it’s not a bad idea to think about mimicking an existing form or brand. A pharmaceutical rep may want to design his business card like a prescription bottle, or a local burger restaurant might want to emulate the McDonald’s golden arches for its name—with a distinct tagline, obviously, like “Food you recognize, but better.” These spoofs certainly aren’t essential to good design, but they’re a good pointer in case you’re stumped for inspiration.

Include your work. Whatever industry you’re in, you need to creatively display it on your business card. Some expensive designs do this in their basic materials: a fabric store using cards made of cloth, a bike shop printing on a flat tire patch. Such off the wall business card design can get expensive, but the method works just as effectively with little design flairs like an applicable graphic. Depending on your industry, it might be appropriate to get a little more creative, and destructive, once your cards arrive. Embossing is expensive, but companies that deal with food or dentistry can make their own impressions with a quick bite. Marriage counselors have also been known to tear their cards in half, then tape them together before distribution. Like a spoof, these destructive endeavors aren’t essential, but they can really lead to a unique and effective design.

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