Business Cards Center

You’ve probably seen a vertical business card. Although they aren’t nearly as common in the basic templates of most online printers, but they do indeed exist.  As the name indicates, vertical business cards have the length shorter than the width and the content layed out accordingly. It’s kind of like flipping from portrait to landscape with paper.

So why would you consider doing vertical business cards?

Good question!

Continue reading ‘Why Vertical Business Cards?’ »

I was looking around the net the other day searching for some cool business card examples and found a few good ones in the Information Technology or IT realm.

As you’d no doubt expect, most of the ones I found were pretty basic and boring corporate cards focusing on logo and stuff like that.  Luckily a few stood out!

I’ll share these collections over the next few days.

Check them out and hopefully you can get some ideas from them for your next IT business card design.

Although the actual content and layout may work better in an information technology field. you can still use the concepts and ideas for inspiration in other niches as well.

Continue reading ‘IT Business Cards’ »

How many of these did you consider in your business card design?

As you probably know, almost any business card will have at least a name and some contact information but there are some clear essential elements for a good effective business card.

1. A Person’s Name!

It’s pretty much a given that your business card should have your name on it, if you want anyone to contact you again that is.

2. A Company Name!

If your name doesn’t remind them, maybe your company name will?  Seriously, almost all business cards have a company or organization name as well.

3. Additional Contact Information

The following are some standard contact details to consider for your business card.  You could have one, two or more of these details on your card.

3a. Address

If you want your prospects and clients to know where your business is and come to you then you have an address on your card.  If your have a web-focused business card and only do business online, you may not need to put your address.

3b. Phone Number(s)
These can include voice, fax and cell numbers, but really only put the ones that you want to be contact on.  If you do business in more than one place, or expect to have prospects and clients from other places, don’t forget to put country codes and/or area codes as well.

3c. Email Address

If you want prospects and clients to be able to send email to you, then you need to include an email address.  This is especially important for a web-based business that doesn’t have many other contact options.

3d. Website Address

If you want people to visit your website, then include this on your card.  Again, this is more important for a web-based business, but almost every business has a website now as well.

4. Job Title or Role

This helps people better understand your role in the company.

5. Description of the Business

A tagline or brief description can be useful when a business name is somewhat ambiguous or doesn’t clearly convey what the business does. Taglines can also explain benefits of doing business with you.

6. Company Logo

Especially handy when focusing on branding, keep it consistent with other marketing materials so you don’t confuse people.

7. The Right Font Size

When getting all of the information you want on your card, you may be tempted to shrink things down to get it all to fit.  Don’t do it!  Keep the font so that everyone in your target market can actually read it.

I hope these tips help in your next business card design.

Mark

You would think something as common as a business card would have a standard size around the world.  But surprisingly this is not the case. 

So far I’ve found seven (7)!  Yes, seven standard business card sizes to choose from when designing your next business cards.  So if you are planning on doing business with any of these countries you may want to consider another business card order.

It’s crazy really as the sizes are actually pretty close, and as you’ll see when you check out the the chart below they range from 3.346″ x 1.889″ (85 mm x 48 mm) through to 3.582″ x 2.165″ (91 mm x 55 mm).

Although now business cards can literally come in any shape or size, and in some cases there are great reasons to choose alternative business card sizes, most people go with their country’s common size.

Here are the standard business card size charts by country: (in inches and millimeters)

So these are the standard sizes, but as you know business cards can come in many more shapes and sizes, especially if you want your cards to stand out more.  There are even newer personal cards that are about half the size of normal business cards, based on the Canada/USA size cards that is.

Hope this helps you find the business card dimensions you were looking for.
Mark

Yes! Your business cards can be effective in the digital age!

There are a few really interesting trends happening right now and today we’ll talk about Quick Response or QR codes on your business cards.  I’ll share some great samples in a minute, but first lets be clear on what QR codes really are.

A Quick Response (QR) code is a two-dimensional image that can be scanned and read by smartphone and other mobile device cameras.  When the camera takes a picture of the code, the code is then decrypted to display and act on the information it contains.  This can include displaying text messages or opening websites in a browser, and more…

So you can use a QR on your business cards to quickly bring them into the digital age.

If you have a website or facebook fan page you could direct people there with a QR image on your business card.  If you don’t have anything on the back of your business cards right now (shame on you ) then you could create a QR code image at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/, save it and then upload it when designing your new modern business cards online.

Here are some samples of what is possible:

Ian Brennan
Rene Sebastian
Soul Visual
Let me know what you think?

-Mark