Business Cards Land

Here’s a question that absolutely everyone, who has ever been given a business card, has asked themselves:  What now?  What do you do with all of the business cards, from all of your contacts you’ve been given?  Do you store them away, do you file them, do you enter the information into your computer?  Maybe.  But if you want a much cooler, inventive, and faster way to deal with them, why not snap a digital photo?  That way, in addition to keeping all of the information, you’re also keeping the design, quality and originality of their card too!

That said, there are ways to do it, and then there are ways to do it right.  I just found an article with a few tips on exactly how to photograph those business cards you’ve been accumulating in a way that they’ll be actually memorable, and to give them the respect they deserve.  Check out the full article, but for now, here are the tips:

1. Picking the Perfect Background – Don’t just shoot on your desk, pick a background that makes it stand out.
2. Bring Out the Texture – Adjust light, focus and angle to bring out the quality of the texture in the card.
3. Picking the Perfect Position – Avoid the Top Down shot, work with great angles.
4. Focus on the Focus – Always make sure the card is in perfect focus.
5. Lighting, Lighting, Lighting – Sometimes, Natural light is best.  If not, light appropriately.

As always, read the full article, but that paraphrasing should help you capture the business cards you’ve been given in a perfect, and timeless way!

Popularity: 5% [?]

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Tyler’s mention of his birthday the other day got me to thinking about using birthdays on business cards – I’ve seen it done, I’ve done it myself, and so I’ll throw out the idea for YOU to read and use.

Let me show you an example of one of my own personal cards:

Business Card with Birthday

If you look at it closely, you’ll notice that I put my birthday on my card!  (Yes, it’s only a few weeks away.)

Now if you’re thinking “Why in the world would this lady put her birthday on a business card?” – well, that’s why I did it.

Huh?  You’re not the first person who’s wondered what – which is the whole point.

People ASK ME about my birthday when they see this particular card.  You don’t see birthdays on business cards very often, so people comment on it.

This particular business card is for a greeting card service I promote.  Birthdays are certainly a common reason to send a greeting card – so for me,  opening up a conversation about birthdays is a great way to open up a conversation about a related service.

Another fun way to use birthdays on business cards is simply to list birthdays of famous (or infamous) people on the back of your card, or perhaps of people in your company or in your industry, maybe even birthdays of people you admire.  People tend to keep business cards that contain funny or interesting information.

So here, let me get you started with some birthdays of famous personalities – some more famous than others!

Micky Mouse (cartoon character):  Nov. 18

Barack Obama (US President):  Aug. 4

Brad Pitt (actor):  Dec. 18

Taylor Swift (country music singer):  Dec. 13

Bill Gates (Microsoft founder) : Oct. 28

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Sometimes, and it’s actually quite rare, you’re given a business card that does more than just gives you information about the person’s business or title, but also gives you something you can USE.  We’ve seen on this site, the lockpickers business card that gave you pop-out tools you could use to pick a lock, and now, we’re going to give you two business cards that could come in handy.

The first business card is another one made from a material that makes it hard to duplicate, as it’s using wood to create its unique shape.  Someone took this idea and ran with it and actually made Dominoes out of their business card.  How original, and more importantly, FUN, is that!?  It looks like the business in question is a Wood and Coal business, but still, if you got enough people around that had been given a business card, you could have a game of dominoes AND remember exactly who gave you that card.  Impressive.

Second up, we have probably the most helpful business card ever.  We all have tried, at some point or another, to use a business card, a piece of plastic or even a key to try to clean out our teeth after a lunch out in public.  Sometimes, you just need a toothpick and a mirror, but sometimes, those aren’t easy to find.  Enter the Toothpick & Mirror Business Card!  This card actually gives you little break-off toothpicks and a mirror to check and make sure you have nothing embarrassing left in your teeth after your business meal.  Tell me you wouldn’t be thanking whoever gave you THAT business card?!

There you go!  Now, as we’ve said a million times, go start designing your own business cards!  OvernightPrints.com makes it beyond easy to do just that, so what are you waiting for?!

Popularity: 12% [?]

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We’ve seen a lot of unique business cards on this site, and some of those just so happen to be ridiculously expensive.  Some are so original that you wouldn’t even dream of actually giving them away, and at that point it begs the question:  What’s the point?  We just found one that very securely fits inside that niche.

That’s right, we found a business card made entirely from Copper.  It looks like someone literally had to go in and pound out the information, old-school style and I have no idea what kind of tools that would require, or the time it must have taken to get it right.  That said, copper, while not nearly as expensive as gold or silver or heck, diamonds, is still expensive and I can not fathom giving these away to people for free!  That said, it’d probably be extremely rude and against the Rules of Business Card Etiquette we just went over to ask someone to Pay for your business card now wouldn’t it?

Nevertheless, we’re blown away by the quality and the craftsmanship of this business card, and if there were ANY possible way to make it easier, cheaper and in a greater quantity, I’m sure we’d probably love to get our hands on some of our own.  The only thing it makes us wonder is, with the bar being raised this high, what is next?  Are we going to see business cards made of even more expensive products?  iPod Business Cards?

You tell us…what’s next!?

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Just this Wednsday, we showed you a business card made entirely from copper.  Yes, the metal.  The simple fact that it was made entirely from metal was impressive, but the fact is, it is probably too expensive and time consuming for most of us to even dream about.  Today, since it’s Friday and you know how much we love showing you great videos on Friday, we’re going to show you a video entirely made of metal business cards.

Just to prove it’s possible, I suppose, but nevertheless, it’s great to see that if you really don’t care how much money you’re going to spend on your business card, you can do some pretty great things.  These examples are beautiful and show you just how high the bar Can be raised for business cards.

Personally, however, we think you should save your money and head to OvernightPrints.com.  Why not, huh?!

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Hey, Tyler, happy belated birthday!  Hope you  had a great time – and that you didn’t spend your whole day thinking about business cards!

Was getting ready to write about what I promised in my last post (embellishing existing cards) – when I read what you wrote, and had to respond!  First, more about the postcard idea…

Business Card Postcards

I couldn’t tell if your postcard example was postcard-sized or business-card-sized – but if it’s a business card (size) that’s intended to look like a postcard, that’s a really imaginative idea for sure.  Thanks for finding it and sharing it.

But it’s also a cool idea to take a business card design and “blow it up” to postcard size.  Several reasons for that.

First, it helps with branding – keeping a common “look” to your marketing materials.

Second, have you ever been in a situation where you don’t have a business card with you, and you find yourself promising to mail them a card?  Having a “postcard-sized” business card would be a clever way to do that and it would give you a bit of room for a message., too.

Third, blowing a business card up to postcard size allows you to make maximum use of design work you might have paid dearly for, by reusing it for another product.

It’s not hard to find printers who’ll do both business cards and postcards for you – OvernightPrints.com is such a printer, they do good work and their prices are very affordable.

Taking this idea a step further…it’s also really cool to take someone ELSE’s business card and blow it up to postcard size – especially someone you want to impress!

Or a company could print postcards for a new employee when they print business cards – using the same design – and thereby give the new employee an easy way to stay in touch with clients and prospects, too.

You could have a lot of fun and get a lot of mileage out of using business cards as post cards.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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Welcome back!  You made it through Monday, which always deserves an award, or at the very least a reward, and so for your reward today, we’re going to throw two more brilliant business card designs at you to help get your creative juices churning.  When it comes time to design YOUR business card, no matter if you want to go simple or creative just keep some of these ideas in mind and the sky is the limit for what you can create.

First up we have one of the cutest business card designs we’ve ever seen.  People, in general, are suckers for anything miniature.  I don’t care if it’s a miniature horse, poodle or even a regular product shrunken down to mini-size, people love it.  So when we saw these Mini-Envelopes Business Cards, obviously, we freaked out.  They are literally miniature envelopes, complete with the little plastic window that always accompanies the bills we get in the mail, only this time they house a business card.  How completely genius and memorable.  Tell me you wouldn’t remember that person forever if they gave you that card!?  Thought so.

Second up, we have probably the single best business card we’ve ever seen for an attorney-at-law.  While this could also work brilliantly for a bail bondsman, for an attorney that specializes in getting people OUT of trouble, you can’t do much better than a card that literally lets you take someone out of jail by reading the card, now can you?  Each slide shows more information of the attorney, and once you get the card out, he’s out of jail and you’re left dialing his number as quickly as possible.  Genius?  We think so!

There you go!  Two more to get your ideas flowing!  If you’re not heading over to OvernightPrints.com RIGHT now to start designing your OWN cards, you’re crazy.  Get over there, and start submitting pictures of YOUR cards!

Popularity: 2% [?]

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What you DO know is this:  today is Monday and on Monday I love to post some of the best, most exciting and fresh business card designs we’ve ever seen.  What you don’t know is, today is also my birthday, so I really want to bring you something unique.  That said, today I found two of the most interesting, original, creative and fun designs we’ve ever seen.  I know we say that a lot here, but these once again raise the bar.

First up, we have the “Postcard Business Card” that looks like it’s being used for a person who specializes in the design and photography industry.  What a completely unique way to put out not only your business information, which you can plainly see all over the card, but do it in a way that instantly makes people feel a bit at ease, and a huge dose of nostalgia.  Perfect blend when you want to be remembered.

Second up, we have one of the most stunning examples of typography on a business card we’ve ever seen.  You might know by now that in addition to LOVING business card design, we’re also fanatics of great uses of fonts and typography.  This one combines the two effortlessly and looks downright breathtaking.  These cards look like they belong to a restaurant, and its owner, and all we can say is, if we saw these cards, we’d eat there on principle alone.  Well played!

So there you have it, two to kick off your Monday Morning!  Check in tomorrow for two more that will blow your mind!

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Suppose you’re employed by a big organization – a company with lots of salespeople, or one in which there may be dozens (if not hundreds) of employees doing similar jobs, using similar business titles, and passing out identical business cards.

In a case like this, it’s more important than ever to stand out as an individual.

And personalizing your business card is a great (and inexpensive) way to start.  Even if you have to pay for these custom business cards yourself, you can get cards as cheap as 1000 business cards for $39.95 – definitely affordable!  (You can get quality business cards at that low price from OvernightPrints.com.)

Much depends on if and how your company will allow you to deviate from their generic company look on your new cards.  It’s understandable that a company would want to standardize the way they’re presented to the world – but you may be able to get permission to add non-standard information to your particular card and still stay within their design constraints.

Perhaps you’re the company’s #1 Salesman.  Can you put that on your card?   Do you have certifications, awards or experience that others in your company do not – and if so, can you put that on your business card?

Remember, even if many people in your company are offering identical merchandise, it’s not always about the product or service – it’s about the expertise or judgment of the salesperson, too.  If you can demonstrate such experience or expertise (e.g. “25 years experience in repairing watches”) on your card, do so!

Even if you can’t, there are options.

Are you the coach for your company’s volleyball team, or the organizer for your company’s annual fundraising efforts for Habitat for Humanity?  Those aren’t business-specific tidbits of information, but they do help others see you as an individual and offer additional opportunities for conversation and connection.

What if your firm won’t allow you to custom-print your business card at all?  I’ll show you how to embellish existing cards in my next post.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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