Business Cards Land

We’re halfway there!  The weekend is in sight and I’m sure given the Winter doldrums that is an extremely welcome thought.  That said, we have something that might just prove to be the medicine to your mid-week blues.  At least that’s what I’m guessing the samples of medicine themed business card look like they can do.  I’m not entirely sure what is in them though.

That’s right, look at these insanely creative business cards belonging to someone known as the Brain Doctor.  They have all of the pertinent information printed right on them and in the back is the all-too-familiar blister pack of little white pills.  While again, I can not be positive what’s In the blister packs, it does look medicinal.  I’m hoping for a sugar pill.  The fact that he’s a graphic designer makes me think it IS sugar, not some crazy brain medicine that you probably have no business taking.  That leads me to another idea, how cool would it be if you designed your blister packed medicine themed business cards with Smarties inside?!  Creative and fun!

Nevertheless, it just goes to show how far you can push the envelope and that no matter what your idea is, it’s most likely obtainable.  This guy had the idea to make his look like medicine samples and he found a way to make it happen.  What can you do?  What can you invent?  What can you decide to make great?  The sky is the limit, now start shooting for it!  Show us some of your best business cards, we can’t wait to see!

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Writing a blog in this industry, we hear a lot of words like “measure up,” “stack up” and compare.  Everyone wants to know how their business card compares to those of other people in similar industries.  If they’re using the right kind of paper, if their ink is high enough quality, how they are cut, just about every aspect of the card can be dissected and analyzed.  They are all being stacked up against the competition.  The business card we just stumbled on most likely never has to worry about how they stack up against the competition, how they measure, and you know why?  Because they can actually measure how they measure up…literally. 

Why?  Simple, take a glance above and you’ll have that question answered instantly.  Looks like Robert Gehring literally used a ruler, well 3 inches of one, and printed his details directly below the measuring lines.  In a word:  GENIUS.  I don’t know how long he’ll be able to keep this up, where he gets his sections of rulers or even if they all use the same 1-3 inches of the wood, but no matter what, these are some of the most inventive, creative and different business cards we’ve ever seen.  I have to say, we love seeing that and we love highlighting just how much you can do with a little thought power and a little attitude.

The bottom line:  When someone’s willing to go the extra mile like this on their business cards, you KNOW, for fact, that they’ll go the extra mile for you in whatever it is you need, whatever it is they do.  Think about this as you design something as seemingly small and simple as a business card.  Show how far you’re willing to go and chances are good people will believe you.

Popularity: 25% [?]

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Given the limited amount of space on a business card, it’s important to make sure that your information is chosen correctly and positioned appropriately.  You have to be ruthless about every word and image, making sure that each one has a solid reason for being there and contributes to the overall purpose of the card.

That being said – certain parts of the business card are more important than others, and people read business cards differently in different parts of the world.

For example, in the US and most of the Western world, we read from top to bottom and left to right.  So people scan business cards from the top left to the bottom right – and that’s where the most important text should go.

Beyond that, there are other ways to make your most important information stand out.

There’s SIZE – the largest item on a page is usually seen first and is often perceived as most important.

CONTRAST also helps – if you put just one word or phrase in a contrasting color, it will get noticed.  Don’t overdo the contrast – it’s got to be sparing or it loses its effectiveness.

IMAGES also attract more attention than words do.

Popularity: 5% [?]

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Your business card has a job to do – to tell people who you are, what you do, who you do it for, why they should care to begin with and how to reach you.

So let’s focus on that first key element – your identity.  It’s not as simple as giving someone your business or company name, it’s deeper than that.  Who are you and what is your business image?

WHO you are can have several different meanings.

~ Yes, there’s your business or company name,  hopefully something unique to you.

~  WHO as in your type of business; lawn care, insurance, real estate.  And there’s a deeper level to that too – what do you specialize in?  Do you sell health insurance or commercial real estate?  So who  you are includes your specialty.

~ WHO as in the person actually named on the card, and the title they have or the role they play in your company.

~ WHO as in the type of business entity you are – a partnership, LLC, charitable foundation, etc.

~ WHO as in your unique selling position or role in the marketplace – are you the low price leader, the “delivery in 30 minutes or less or it’s free” company or the most convenient service?  This aspect of “who” includes your positioning and marketing, the public perception of your business.

There are probably other aspects of your business that define who  you are – your industry affiliations, perhaps, or your position in your industry – but the point is that your business card is a great place to define all of these.

People do business with people they know, like, and trust – and making sure your business card clearly states who you are is a critical first step!

Popularity: 5% [?]

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A little something different on BusinessCardsLand.com today…in lieu of a normal post highlighting all of the amazingness that pops up in the world of Business Card design, we’re going a different route and we’re going to highlight a bit of amazingness in the world of great human beings.  Yes, I realize “amazingness” probably isn’t a word, but it should be when talking about people in the upper echelon of our history…Martin Luther King Jr. is exactly one of those people, and today is his day.

That’s right, today is that day and while many of you might have the day off of work for it, many of you are reading this post from the comfort of your own homes, I think it’s important we all remember the spirit of his life, all he stood for, accomplished and would want to see today.  I guess I’ve never thought of today as a day off, and I don’t know if MLK himself would want that either.

So, today, take a moment to remember the man that helped reshape the surface of our society and our culture as a whole.  Today is his day and all he fought for, lived for and ultimately died for is being celebrated.  Use today to do some good, donate some time or money to the Haiti Relief effort, volunteer, something.  We’ll see you back here, but for today, use the time off to put some time Into something bigger than ourselves!

Popularity: 48% [?]

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It’s Friday!  Cue celebrations.  Now, to kick things off a bit early for your weekend festivities you may or should have planned, we dug up the perfect business card with the most perfect cutout we’ve probably ever seen executed on a business card.  Sometimes cutouts just don’t work, sometimes they seem forced, sometimes they seem superfluous and unnecessary.  Sometimes, however, the stars align and the cutout comes into existence (or is it out of existence?) and it transforms what could have been a fairly ordinary business card into something much more, well, extraordinary. 

This card, from a little place called …In A Bottle, uses a cutout to express exactly that.  The whole site is called Message in a Bottle and I have to say, the business card chronicles that perfectly.  The cutout, as you can tell by glancing above, is a cutout of a wine bottle and it’s used to show quite simply and effectively that the woman’s moniker is that exact message coming out of the cutout bottle.  In a short word:  Genius.  I’m inclined to believe that cutouts on business cards can often be overused, but when they are used properly they seriously elevate a business card into a different level of creative.  This is one of those cases and it makes us love it.

So, a tip from us to you on this fine Friday:  Think carefully when designing your business card, if the cutout fits and helps launch your card into the stratosphere of cool, by all means do it.  If, however, you have to force it on there or try very hard to find a reason for it, think twice, it’s entirely ok to leave it out.  On that note, we’d absolutely love if some of you would start sending in some of YOUR business cards to us.  We love seeing what you’re up to, and we’d love to feature some on our site!  Send in those business cards!

Popularity: 26% [?]

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It’s very difficult to be objective about ANYTHING we design ourselves or is even about us in a positive way.  That’s true for business cards – you probably fell in love with yours the minute you saw it, but it doesn’t mean other people see it that way!

One way that you can get a feel for how well your business card stands out from the competitors is to grab a stack of random cards – maybe 50 to 100 – and spread them out on a table, right side up, facing toward you.  Make sure your card is included too.  (Better yet, have someone ELSE spread out the cards, so you don’t know where yours is.)

Position yourself in front of the table and shut your eyes for 30 seconds.  Now open them – which cards stand out the most, and why?

I got this idea from Scott Ginsberg, “that guy with the nametag” – and this is what he noticed when he did this exercise:

~ Red: every card that had red on it stood out

~ Picture: only a few cards had pictures of the cardholder. This not only made them stand out, but helped  him connect faces with names and companies.

~ Vertical: several cards were formatted vertically, which caught his eye.

~ Black Background: most cards have a white background, so the black ones REALLY stood out.

~ Image: cards with some sort of colorful image that took up at least one fourth of the total surface area captured his interest.

So how does YOUR card stack up – er, stand out?

Popularity: 9% [?]

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You’re not the only one who can hand out your business cards.  If you’re really trying to get your business cards circulating in 2010, be thinking of who ELSE can be passing your business cards along!

It’s not just people who might use your business service or product, or previous customers (although they should probably have a couple of your cards).  There are probably other people who might be in a position to pass your card along.

And there are almost certainly ways to make your business card easier to obtain.

• Keep your cards with you in a nice card case.
• Put a business card holder on your desk or on the front desk in the reception area.  Keep it stocked!
• Put up some sort of business card display case on the wall in your office.  Provide business cards for businesses that complement your own – either because they offer related products or services (realtors might offer cards for landscapers, painters, siding experts, carpeting, etc.) or because they share a geographic affinity (like being in the same shopping mall.)Why does putting out all these people’s cards help you?  Because part of the deal is that they pass out YOUR card in return!
• Stick a business card in every envelop you mail – you never know who it will get passed on to.  For maximum impact, add some sort of offer or bonus if they actually call or visit your website, based on seeing the card.
• If you go to a meeting, put a business card on every seat.

What creative ways can YOU find to get your cards to more people in 2010?

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Welcome back.  Monday again and this time I decided that we all needed something that reminded us of our childhood, something to break up Monday and bring us back to happier, non-work day times.  Think back to the last time you were at a circus, or a Chuck-E-Cheese, or heck even a Minor League baseball game or at worst, an arcade.  What was the thing you most looked forward to?  Yep, me too, those raffle tickets, prize tickets and little connected and perforated strips of paper that meant you could probably go somewhere and cash them in for some amazing and essentially worthless toy.

Those days, my friends, are back.  The designer of this beautiful and awesome little business card decided to take us there, and boy does it work.  The front faithfully maintains the old school charm that those raffle tickets and prize coupons always have held and the back of the card does the hard work by displaying all of the pertinent information that you will need to actually call these amazing people whose cards you’re ogling over.  Imagine being handed one of these beauties?  Can you honestly think of anything that would cause you to not share this with just about everyone else you came in contact with after you were given it?  Nope, neither can we.  That is what we call a winner of a business card and this might be one of my favorites I’ve posted in a long, long time.

So, for a Monday, you can’t do much better than being forced back into your youth and remembering days spent in arcades, dark pizza places with creepy puppets singing scary songs from a stage and baseball game 50/50 raffles where you always bought a ticket despite your age and complete knowledge that there was no chance you’d actually win.  Nevertheless, if there were more business cards like this out there, I have a sneaking suspicion that business would be a lot more fun.  Lets make that happen, can we?

Popularity: 18% [?]

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You never know when you’re going to be glad that you keep a good supply of business cards on hand.

I was looking outside the window at all the snow while I was thinking about this post, and remembered an incident from a few years ago.

A young man – maybe 12 or 14 or so in age – was all bundled up, and he was going from door to door in my neighborhood offering to shovel snow.   I didn’t need his service  – I had my own kids I could put to work on the snow! – but he handed me a simple business card before he walked away.

I noticed him tucking business cards into doors of the houses where no one responded to his knock.

Now you can predict snow somewhat – and in Missouri odds are you’re going to get SOME snow during winter months – but if that young man hadn’t had a supply of business cards on hand when he needed them, he couldn’t have prospected as effectively.

Maybe your business isn’t dependent on taking advantage of weather conditions – but have you ever been invited to a networking event at the last minute?  Has there ever been anything in the news that relates to what you do, or have you gotten any publicity for something?

Be prepared for unexpected opportunities and situations by re-ordering business cards often.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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