A few weeks ago I received my first ever business card and as you can imagine, I was quite excited! Have a look:
Nice, isn’t it? We all have ones like it at Reflect Digital and we are constantly getting complimented on them. No surprise though, they’re great!
I love the iconic scene in American Psycho – everyone knows the scene I’m talking about – where Christian Bale gets very jealous of someone else’s business card. Although it may have been a tad OTT, it does highlight the importance of a good-looking, well-designed and professional business card. It is that piece of you that they may keep and come across again – it reflects what they think of you and your business. Essentially it’s a case of judging a book by its cover.
Quite frankly, some business cards are rubbish. So with a little help from a few bloggers and websites (1, 2, 3, 4), I have decided to collate together some of the top business card ‘no-no’s:
- Using low-quality paper – no-one likes a cheap skate! Especially if your business requires customers to potentially spend large amounts of money, are they really going to want to hand it over to someone who can’t even fork out a bit more on a good-quality bit of card? Nah.
- Having inconsistencies – the logo and branding of your company should match your business card. FACT.
- Having multicoloured dream-cards – there’s standing out and being remembered and there’s standing out and being remembered for the wrong reasons. Too much colour is too overbearing and ugly. Stick to one or two strong ones instead.
- Putting important information on the back – it’s not very likely to be looked at.
- Overloading on the information – keep it simple and easy on the eye. Do they really need to know your inside leg measurement?
- Not putting enough information on it – make sure that anyone looking at your card can instantly understand what you do and how they can get hold of you – a website and email address are crucial as many clients don’t want to go straight in with the sales call
- In-your-face logos – if you’re company is any good, you won’t need to shove it in potential client’s faces. A small, good-looking logo shall suffice.
- Font – make sure it’s legible and not too small.
- Not seeking professional advice – unless you’re a designer, I wouldn’t attempt it yourself! Cough – Reflect Digital can help – cough!
- Going for a crazy, original shape – be boring! It would be silly if your star-shaped card didn’t fit inside a potential client’s business card holder, wouldn’t it?
However, these tips really depend on what type of business you are. Take my card for example; it probably wouldn’t be the most appropriate card for a prestigious law firm. But it works well for us!
An element of common sense comes into it too; try and think what you like to see on other people’s business cards.
If you’re really struggling or want an expert team to design your logo and branding then here at Reflect Digital we can lend a helping hand! For more call 08448705204 or use the following link: http://www.reflectdigital.co.uk/design/logo-design
If you’d like to see some case studies of branding we have done for other companies then here is the link: http://www.reflectdigital.co.uk/corporate-identity
American Psycho images retreieved from – http://watchthesefilms.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/american-psycho_7248.html
