King Pin Business Cards

Free business card designs can be a quick and easy way to get up and running as quickly and as cheaply as possible when starting a business. It can however, be a false economy.

We all know starting a business can be an expensive undertaking, and a set of business cards probably don’t come very high in the extensive list of priorities. If it isn’t something that you consider immediately, keep it in the back of your mind for once things have calmed down a bit. Being able to present a good quality business card to a colleague or prospective client is a valuable business and marketing tool.

There are plenty of free business card designs on the internet if you aren’t the creative type, or have run out of operating capital until you get some work in. They are generally free to download and print yourself, or business card manufacturers and printers usually have some as examples for you to use. You can either print them yourself or online for a nominal fee.

It may be tempting to use a service like this when you first start out as they are very cost effective and don’t really take that much thinking about. However, be careful of the design you use as it could say more about your approach to business than you might think. Shopping on a budget is an art form, and one that has spawned an untold amount of TV programs. The trick is to be clever with your budget purchases and make sure they don’t look like they were cheap.

If you want to use a free design then I advise you to shop around. There are literally thousands of sites with free designs out there. I think I surfed most of them when I was looking for my own. It’s quite easy to burn a few hours checking through them all looking for something half decent. A few hours you could be earning the money to pay for a proper one! I ended up downloading a few free templates and not liking any of them. Even playing around with them in Illustrator or Paintshop Pro didn’t make them any prettier. In the end I spend about three days looking for a good design to use or modify for my needs. I then found a freelance site and got a designer to create one for me for $15! It is original, looks good, and is most of all memorable.

I believe it says the right things about me and my company. It is also of a standard far higher than any of the free designs I saw when trawling the internet.

If you can take other people’s ideas and adapt them for your own needs then a free business card design may work for you. If on the other hand, creativity isn’t what makes you famous then I would pay someone to do the work for you. The end result will be much better and you can concentrate on building you business instead of wasting time on the internet.

Whether your card is cardboard, plastic, metal or fabric, a decent print job is essential to give that professional look. It’s no good having a cutting edge design if nobody can read your contact details when they need to.

Just about any hard surface can carry a print and from looking at business card designs that never worked, I think most of them have been tried already. I bought some off the internet once that cost me $45 for 200 cards. The site went on about quality and clarity of their print I decided to give them a try. I was most disappointed when my card arrived. The printing was blurry and wasn’t sharp or clear at all. The card cutting was also loose with threads sticking out of the edges of the card. Not good at all. That’s what you get for getting a ‘budget’ printer to do it for you. The company was supposed to be in the US, but the box was postmarked Singapore!

The overall quality of the card as well as the eye-catching design and clever wording is important. Business card printing needs to be sharp as there isn’t much space to work with. Fitting a decent amount of information into a small space is an exercise in itself. The font needs to be of a size large enough to be clearly read, but small enough that you can fit all the pertinent information onto it.

If in doubt you can print them yourself on a decent home printer. The Dpi of the printer needs to be enough that it can drop ink onto cardboard and remain sharp. Many of the cheaper printers will smudge or be too weak to handle the cardboard, if you are using it. I use an Epson D6600 and it handles the printing and the card perfectly well. The built in software even has an application that will fill an A4 sheet of it with as many cards as possible while still printing double sided.

If you want to use something other than cardboard then you would be better served getting a professional to print it for you. The raw materials can be quite expensive and a home printer won’t be able to print on many of the options open to a print studio. Plastics, fabrics or metal are certainly some of the materials in common use in cards today that you probably won’t be able to do yourself. Some printers give off too much heat to be able to print on plastic properly, or the heads can’t penetrate the plastic enough to get an image to imprint.

So as a general rule of thumb, check the quality of your printer either the commercial kind, or the connected to your PC kind. If you are using different materials, then definitely get a professional to do it for you. Your card is your brand so do it properly. The better you present yourself and your business, the more people are likely to trust it and you.

The best business card isn’t the one with the coolest design, brightest color or most tactile material. It is the one that provides the answer for someone’s problem. If you card tells people you can help them, and that you are there when they need you, then it will be a success. All the imagination in the world can’t make a success out of any brand if it says nothing and means nothing. Business cards are keys. Put them in the right hands and they unlock doors. That is their whole purpose and has been since time immemorial. Gone are the days when men in pinstripe suits swap cards before shaking hands knowing they will get a call because they are the only person in the area who can do what they do.

We live in a diverse and specialist society. Increased security and food production means more of us can specialize in some skill or other to make money. Never before have we had so much free time, or freedom to explore alternative avenues of employment or making a living. Working in a bank, office, factory or a trade was all there was. There would only be a couple of bank managers in your town, or a couple of insurance men. A business card didn’t have to do much then as you had a captive audience.

As the horizons drew further away and communications improved, we could look beyond our own towns and cities to a national viewpoint. Now customers didn’t have to deal with people they didn’t want to as they could look further afield. Skip forward a few years and the horizon expands again, and we can suddenly reach a global audience and a world full of people and businesses who compete for each and every customer.

Now the humble business card has a lot more work to do. It rests among many others in the contact book of a company, or the wallet of a contact. No longer can it sit there and merely wait to be used. Now it has to vie for the very short attention span of decision makers along with countless others.

It has to say, hire me! I’m the one you want! Or any other message you want it to convey. It has to be bright enough, different enough and attractive enough for a contact to not merely look past it, but attract and hold their attention. Hold that attention enough for them to make the decision to use the card instead of flicking to the next one.

The best business card isn’t the cleverest or the neatest, it’s the one that can grab someone’s attention and hold it. The best business card is the one that contacts keep until they need it, not end up in the trash as soon as they get back to the office. It offers solutions to problems and an easy way of getting the information to get you that call or email to come on over and talk about a problem you may be able to help with.

Business cards are an investment, but don’t really cost all that much to acquire. There are free business cards out there, either actual card designs or templates. Often they are used by a printer to add value to orders or increase browser interest by using the word ‘free’. Let’s be honest it’s a word we are all interested in!

The designs of free business cards are generally basic, but if you have or are familiar with programs like Adobe illustrator then it’s quite simple to make up a template or two for your card design. Most home computer printers can print onto card and many are configurable enough to allow you to print a whole sheet of cards at a time. While not technically free, as there is a cost in the cardboard, it is minimal. You just have to ensure that the card is thick enough for use in a card, and pliable enough to be able to be rolled by your printer.

The other way ‘free’ is used to market business cards in the ‘buy x amount of cards and get x free!’ offers. If you are purchasing a bulk set of cards, then the printer or stationer may offer to throw some in for free. This is popular at the moment with online printers. ‘Buy 100 and get 25 free’ is one I saw the other day while looking at new designs. A value oriented offer that adds to the overall value of your order rather than giving you the whole product free. This is ideal if you have a better design or are using one that simply isn’t available free. All of the offers I have seen so far though have been for standard cards. No soft corners, or plastic or metal finishes as they cost too much to produce to be able to give them away.

I have to confess though, although I love the no cost option of almost anything, I don’t feel them appropriate for business cards. Like a website, a card is a long term impression of your company. If you present a cheap mass produced card to someone at a lunch or a meeting you are hardly going to impress them. Even if they aren’t the type to be wowed by a funky clear plastic card or a sheet of foil with your name on it, you still need to present yourself and your company in the best light possible. What would the impression be if your business card was blatantly the cheapest you could find?

The brand and overall impression of a company is all important. It will live and die by it. People have to be able to relate to your brand and identity. They have to be able to trust it and be confident that it can produce quality. Trying to sell this kind of identity while using free business cards is not the way to inspire confidence in your future clients.

Take my advice and spend a little money on your business card. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but enough to give you something original and memorable.

When you are planning your company stationery either rebranding or as a small business start-up, the kind of paper you use is one of the first things you should decide on. It will directly influence the design and how the finished product will look.

There are many different types of paper to choose from let alone all the metals and plastics that are now increasing in popularity. The higher the quality of paper, the more professional looking the result. Although they will be more expensive that basic 3pt card, they are well worth the investment as the impression they give will be far better.

The ‘pt’ in 3pt refers to the Board and Point, and is printer speak for the thickness of the card. A good gauge is to use a minimum of 14pt so the card is durable and not flimsy. This is especially true if your card design contains a lot of color. A thicker card will prevent the color seeping through to the other side, which you may experience with thinner card.

My personal favourite is Ivory paper because of its superior quality and finish. It lasts a lot longer and stays tidier than normal card. It is a good way of achieving a classy, quality finish for any company.

Handmade paper is another option for people who like textures. They can be made up of many types of materials such as silk, wool, wood and loads of others. Just about any natural material can be made into paper. The different texture is an ideal way to set yourself apart and offering an in when meeting new people. A textured card is sure to evoke comment.

There is also such a thing as non-tear paper which is also a useful business card material. This is becoming more popular as the cost of materials decreases. It used to be expensive to use, but is now quite reasonable. It is a thin card covered in a light laminate which offers the non-tear capabilities. They are also damp proof and can survive a coffee spill, which is why they are being used more and more.

Art paper is my staple but not my favourite. A good quality business card paper with either a matt or gloss finish. It allows for a lot of design options and can take extra elements like photographs or fine images. It does cost a lot more than standard card but the result is well worth the expense in my opinion. Sitting the same design next to each other, one on standard card, and the other on art paper speaks for itself. There is simply no competition between the two.

Any design, no matter how expensive or beautiful will sink or swim depending on the paper stock it sits on. A good quality paper will transform the card into something to talk about and will exude quality, which is something worth much more to a business than the cost of the cards.

Someone once told me ‘my business card is something to remember me by’. I used to think that said more about him than his business contacts, but now I’m in the business world, I see exactly what he meant.

Travelling salespeople, insurance sales, company reps and a myriad of other business functions are carried out by face to face meetings. Some people’s business contact books run into dozens of pages. There is simply no way that you are going to remember all of their details. The business card is the ideal tool to stay memorable.

Although there is a market for imaginative and eye catching card designs, as long as the staple information is on the card, you will be fine. I have never seen someone flick through their business cards and give someone work just because they were bored at the time. People use your card for a good reason, and it doesn’t really seem to make much difference whether it was a plain white card or a carbon fiber one.

Most businesspeople don’t like wasting time, so ensuring all of your up to date details are in front of as many decision makers as possible is an essential marketing tool. Going to a lecture or Chamber of Commerce lunch armed with a pocket full of cards can get you a lot of contacts, and hopefully a lot of business.

There is more to a business card than a little 2×2.5” piece of cardboard. There are now electronic versions, and versions you can send from your mobile phone. The pretext is exactly the same, getting your information to people for when they want you. Moving with the times and having your details in a readable format on a Blackberry is as important as having a card in their Rolodex. Even Outlook has the facility to create a business card which you can attach to emails and append to contact lists.

The advantage with electronic cards is hyperlinking. You can link directly to your email, Twitter, Facebook or whatever with an electronic card. This save vital seconds for a potential prospect in getting hold of you. Marketing is all about getting a message across and convenience. A good marketing strategy is to take as much effort as possible out of getting hold of someone or acquiring information. A business card helps that by having all relevant information ready and waiting in one place. The less effort it takes someone to get in touch with you, the more likely someone will actually do it. The card only takes care of one aspect of this strategy though. The other half, the getting the message across is mainly up to you once your card has been used. There are subliminal pointers you can use in your card design. The tone and quality of the card can say a lot about you, and give an unconscious trigger to those who look at it. That will be discussed in another entry.

Think of your business card like a Visa, and never leave home without it, as you never know who you will bump into.

Templates were created for people like me. People who don’t have too much creative inspiration or skill but would like to have a go at making something. A business card template is no exception to this. What seems a simple design exercise can still be a mountain too high to climb for the creatively stunted like me. Even though I have the tools, I don’t really have the skills or imagination to do anything useful with them.

Using templates allowed me to learn the forms and structures of designs, while also adding a little creative flair to the mix. I could play with the design and explore the elements, seeing what could work and what wouldn’t. It isn’t something I could have figured out myself before getting bored.

Most graphic programs have templates for each of the main subjects that you can use and modify for your own needs. Now I check these out whenever I get new software to get a better idea of what the program and myself is capable of doing.

Apart from these graphic applications, that can cost hundreds of dollars, there are cheaper programs specifically for business cards or branding that cost a lot less, or are occasionally even free. They will also contain templates of base ideas you can build on and embellish to your heart’s content in order to create a design you like enough to use.

Many printers, online or otherwise have business card templates you can use if you don’t want to mess around with programs and modifying your own. You run the risk of being one in a crowd if you use one of these though as there will be very little to distinguish your card from hundreds of others unless you make it original.

It is much easier and cheaper to do it this way though, and is tempting for many. I would again advise, against it. Your card needs to stand out from the crowd to be noticed, and a plain white card with black lettering and a monotone logo isn’t going to inspire anyone to call you if they don’t have to.

Choose your template carefully if you are going to use one. There are plenty of resources online where designers sell their business card templates for little money. You can find one you like and download it to your PC and modify to suit your needs. That doesn’t just mean changing your contact details or whatever. Feel free and inspired to change the design if you feel like it. Be original and it will be repaid in spades when you card is seen by more and more people.

Using a template is perfectly acceptable in any aspect of design, but it pays to explore it a bit and change bits here and there. It will make your design original, and give you confidence to try something creative again another time. It may even inspire ideas that you can use in your overall brand!

It is tempting to make your own business cards, as it is to put your own stamp on anything around you. From your home, car, wife or business, I guess it’s the modern equivalent of marking your territory.

There is much to be said for this though, as it adds variety and originality to things around us. The desire to put a piece of ourselves into something is an admirable trait and something that should be encouraged. Whenever we make an investment of any kind we build an attachment to that something. We are more likely to expend time and effort making whatever it is work, and look good. We place much less stock in things we can just buy without thinking about it.

When starting your own business it is tempting to try and do as much of it yourself as you can. From designing your brand, logo or stationery to your office heating. To either save money or make it completely your own. This is fine if you have the time and the skills to do it and make it work.

Take your business card for example. It’s a fairly standard shape and size, and there are practical limitations on what you can do, but a creative mind can create some excellent examples of an otherwise quite boring piece of corporate equipment. There are plenty of tools out there now that can help you make your own business card, and most decent desktop printers can print them for you.

The thing you have to consider is ‘will the finished article look professional enough for me’. If the answer is now then you shouldn’t be doing it yourself and should be getting someone in to do it for you. The expense may hurt in the beginning, but think of it as an investment, as the more professional you appear, the more likely you are to get business. Especially if your products or services are business to business ones.

Everybody starts somewhere, and generally small. It doesn’t mean you have to think that way though. Thinking big is the mark of a true entrepreneur and that kind of attitude should be encouraged at all costs. One of the secrets of making it in business is convincing your clients that you are bigger and better than you actually are. Then they will have the confidence that you can deliver. That’s when you start making money. Having a professional ‘face’ can disguise all sorts of mayhem behind the scenes, and as long as the client never sees it, it doesn’t matter. Anything about you or your business that your client can see needs to be squeaky clean, efficient and professional to give the right impression. Although people say they understand when a company is starting up, they don’t really, and won’t cut you any slack because of it.

Think of your business card as an aspect of your professional face. It needs to be clean, professional and inspire confidence. If it doesn’t do that, you won’t either.

Plastic business cards are the new face of an old tradition. Business cards, and gentlemen’s calling cards have been around since the 18th century, and haven’t changed much since then.

The shape and size remained almost untouched until a few years ago when new shapes and sizes began appearing on the market. There is a distinct difference between a calling card and a business card.

The calling card came first when middle class gentlemen would leave them with the butler of a friends they called on. It was a form of non-confrontational meeting that was designed to save the embarrassment of seeing people you didn’t want to. It was a simple affair, much the same shape and size as a traditional business card. It would hold the gentleman’s name and profession if he had one. That was it until addresses started making an appearance much later on.

This tradition was then taken up by the business community as a convenient way of leaving contact details with new customers or acquaintances. It saves time and awkwardness when you don’t have to hunt for paper and a pen to write down the details in a hurry. The business card was regarded as a the reserve of a professional until late in the 20th century when it started gaining popularity in mainstream business. Once the preserve of surgeons and bank managers became used every day by car salespeople and insurance men. Once they became popular and handed out almost without thought they began to lose their impact except at the highest professional circles.

Around our entry into the 21st century, cards began having a kind of renaissance. Designers began experimenting with shapes, fabrics, textures and any other variation they could think of within the limits of the device. Most of the designs you can find are useless and would be quite inappropriate for business use, but are excellent examples of what you can do with such a limited framework.

One of the best innovations was the use of plastic instead of card as a material. This was only possible because new printing techniques discovered thermal bonding, which is a method of using heat to imprint images onto the plastic. This allowed designers to create a whole new variety of cards. There are limitations of the material though.

The design has to be fairly simple, only use a couple of colors and the design itself can’t mix colors. There has to be a thin space between any meeting of color to stop bleeding and to remain distinct. However, the material is hard wearing and durable and won’t deteriorate like card does. This adds longevity to the card as it will resist moisture and wear.

Using a plastic card while still not that popular is a great way to stand out from the crowd. It can set you apart, and a quality card with a good design can give the impression of quality and professionalism. Little things like that can make all the difference when meeting new people for the first time. A professional ‘face’ or image can make or break any business relationship, new or old.

A full color business card seems the minimum requirement these days. Especially with up and coming designers producing cards that shout look at me from the rooftops! Not every company wants to be at the forefront of design, or wants to portray that kind of image.

When designing a color card, you have to stick to one or two base colors and build the design up from that. Too many colors or images will make the card look crowded and it will begin to lose its effect. The color choice should be on the brief or bear at least some resemblance to any existing corporate brand or identity.

A recent study by the University of Columbia showed that color makes us more receptive to advertising. (Color Boosts brain performance and receptivity, depending on task, UBC, 2009). The findings where mainly centered around the colors red and blue as these are pretty much the most popular colors out there. A study of 600 subjects underwent tests to check cognitive responses to different exercises in different colors. The exercises required either a detail oriented answer or a creative one. When the texts appeared on a red background responses were much more detailed and showed a cognitive increase of 31%. Those tasks shown is blue had a similarly increased creative response. They were shown that adverts or text on a red background made readers more favourable to the product being described if it went into detail about it. Blue backgrounds evoked creative responses from the audience. It is believed that this stems from an instinctive ‘red for danger’ perception like those used on warning signs and ambulances. The blue is thought to be related to openness and tranquillity like the sea and sky which spurs imagination.

Fake products were created and then colored differently to test the theory. A fictional toothpaste was ‘invented’ and when it was presented to the candidates with negative messages like, ‘prevents cavities’ they were more receptive then using red packaging. If the packaging was blue then the subjects responded better to positive messages like ‘tooth whitening’.

If this research is backed up then things could be changing quite a bit in marketing circles. It is something that can be factored in any new company branding or designs you may undertake. Using full color palettes can indeed influence peoples moods and if you are preparing a marketing or promotional tool like a business card then it makes sense to incorporate this if you can. If the design is detailed then use red coloring if you can. If your message is more creative then blues would aid you in getting the message across.

Not only can you be communicating with your audience or contact with a full color business card, you can be talking to their unconscious too by your choice of color! Anybody would be remiss in not making the most of any advantage they can, and if you can subconsciously influence a prospective client, who can tell me they wouldn’t do it?