Helpful business card considerations.
The time has come for you to get a business card. The only problem is you have no idea what it should look like. The appearance of a business card is important. The last thing you want is for someone to pick up your card and his or her first impression is, “Wow this thing is uglier than sin!” When designing your own card (or someone else’s), follow these helpful tips to avoid a professional embarrassment.
- Less is more
When creating a business card it is often the first instinct of many people to load the thing up with piles of artsy graphics. While this can sometimes make a very beautiful card, it is much more difficult to pull off. Instead try and keep it simple. It is the easiest way to look professional. A simple approach also has several added benefits such as easier to read content and cheaper print/production costs. - Alignment
When laying out the content on a business card try to create a common alignment between all elements. Left or right aligned cards are usually the best. Center alignment can often look tacky. The most important thing is to just pick an alignment and stick to it. - Proximity
Keeping related content close together is the easiest way to make information clear and quickly findable. For instance group all the personal contact information and keep it separate from the company’s contact information. Place the company name near the company logo. Little things like this make a big difference. - Contrast
Contrast is the icing on the cake. When used effectively it can add visual interest and improve readability. When used incorrectly it can make a huge mess of things. Most of us already have a brief understanding of contrast. We use all the time when we make important information bolder or larger in a word document. On your business card pick out the information that people will most often be looking for and make it stand out in some way. You might try making the name and phone number a different color from the rest of the text. Be careful though. It is easy to go overboard with contrast. If you emphasize too many things the card will look noisy and hard to read. In the end if everything stands out then nothing does.
