What Your Business Card Says About You

When I was an intern, I spent a good amount of time inputting info from business cards into spreadsheets. I’ve seen a lot of business cards.

​A lot of them are boring.

IT’S IN THE DETAILS

The ones that stood out to me usually had high end embossing or texture, or were a little bit different in shape (like rounded edges instead of square). But there are ways to make your card stand out by simply using design, without having to splurge on cool finishes at the printers.

TRADITIONAL VS. MODERN

When I picture the traditional business cards I looked at, most of them had all the contact info centered in the middle. They were also mostly white with black text.

What really gets me about a lot of the cards I saw is that they were blank on one side! You have a whole other half of real estate you can use to tell people about your or your business. Why not take advantage of it?

Front

Back

My business cards actually aren’t all that different from the typical traditional ones I described. They’re mostly white with black text.

But the text isn’t centered, and instead of a vague company name and slogan, I used one side as a services list. Just these small tweaks gave me a card that looks updated and, of course, on-brand.

OTHER THOUGHTS

I once had a professor say that @gmail is the address of the unemployed. It’s true that I did notice when someone’s email wasn’t @CompanyName, but a lot of new business haven’t given all their employees company emails yet. I think it’s fine, but definitely an upgrade you should consider.

I think a worse faux pas is having a wonky web address like company.blogspot.com on your card. Top tier domains are an investment, but it makes you look so much more legitimate and trustworthy.

Good luck designing and upgrading your business cards.

​❤ Bayley