Color Printing

I’ve talked to people before who had never considered the idea of business cards and graphic design going together. “What is there to design?” they asked with a laugh. “All you have on the card is a name and some contact information. I guess you could say the logo is kind of like graphic design, but that was made long before the business card was.”

Sadly, they have a point. For many people the idea of a custom business card is foreign. All most people ever really see are the standard styles for the business card. I see black lettering on white paper all the time with maybe a colorful logo next to it. But I very rarely see anything other than that.

My question becomes why aren’t people doing more with their cards? Why not have that full color business card that embraces the full color part of it?

I think that the real issue here is that within recent years the rise of home based computer graphic programs has done two things that are quite opposite. The first is that the ability to design very unique and interesting business cards has increased. But at the same time because you have so many different people with things like Adobe Photoshop on their computer at home, they’ve taken to designing the cards themselves.

Now, I have no problem if you want to design your own business card, because I think this adds a level of personality to the cards that would otherwise be lacking. What happens though is that people without design experience go for the simplest form of business card that they can rather than risk designing something harder.

While it might be more difficult to design something beyond the realms that you’re used to, it’s not only good practice, but because business cards are so cheap to print, you won’t be out much money if your card isn’t quite what you want it to be.

The important thing to remember is that a business card is just as much advertising as a brochure or television ad. This right here is the fact people aren’t thinking about when they make those rather bland, repetitive business cards. They’re viewing the cards as nothing more than a means of handing out contact information, and not a means of being remembered.

If a card is going to represent you when you aren’t around, shouldn’t that card be as effective as possible? Don’t you want it to have as much personality in it as you do? Get to work finding something you’ve never seen before, and something that tells people exactly who you are, and I think you’ll find the responses you get to your card will greatly improve. The first time someone looks at your card and exclaims, “That is so interesting looking,” you know you’ve succeeded.