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Business card critiques

Syringer

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
19,333
3
71
So I'm definitely not a designer by any stretch of the imagination, and have used Illustrator maybe 3 times in my life (could barely figure out how to zoom out of an image).

That said, here's a design I put together.

Front: http://www.pikindaguy.com/card.pdf
Back: http://www.pikindaguy.com/card2.pdf

Thoughts? I'm trying to keep it relatively clean while some sense of "style".

The logo/banner were designed by a guy who did our website so I basically vectorized them off of there..so there's not much going around those.

Graphic artists and laymen are all encouraged to give feedback..
 

rezinn

Platinum Member
Mar 30, 2004
2,418
0
0
Looks okay, but the logo is definitely unimpressive. I'd try to incorporate some black. The shades of blue are very boring. And the back is all empty? At least blow up your logo or something and stick it there.
 

AgaBoogaBoo

Lifer
Feb 16, 2003
26,108
5
81
In my opinion, it's way too flashy - there's too many colors, not a consistent contrast.

Before picking one, you need to lay down the objectives:
1) Is it for someone to have your contact information?
2) Is it to sell the service?
3) Which contact information are they going to actually need?

I'll tell you a few things from my point of view:
1) Stick to a single color, or two at most. Get rid of the shading in the middle, all the different shades of blue, etc.
2) Get rid of the whole thing in the middle that says you make the shopping comparison industry work for you
3) Put the address on the front of the card, and keep the back of it blank

Here's what I've found when people hand me a card - I know if it matters to me before I get it, and usually end up tossing 90% of them at some point within the next hour. If it's very flashy or confusing, I don't bother with it, again, unless I know before hand that I really want to talk to them.

Few more points:
1. In photography, the rule of thirds is used, so keep that in mind. With documents, I'm told you should split up the whole area into 4 squares, and try to make sure each is balanced.
2. Humans read from left to right, and top to bottom. This means that yes, your logo will be seen, but the point of a business card is for contact information, and so you should change the placement. Your contact information is on the bottom right, the last place a person's eye naturally looks. Half of it is on the back, again, at the bottom.
3. If the purpose of your card is to get people to make a phone call or mail you a letter, make it easy, don't make them flip the card over or have to search around. I don't personally think that the slogan is going to help. What I've done with slogans is to put them on the back of the card, in the center and italicized.
4. Going to the back of the card, like I said, I put the slogan there, and depending on the event I'm going to, I will put a little message there saying something related to the event. It might be to stop by someone's booth, presentation, etc. and find that it helps people remember where we met because like I said, I toss away 90% of the cards I get. If I actually need to talk to someone and they have an easy to access card that tells me where I met them, I will favor that.

If you'd like to see my card, I can send it to you over email. I'll tell you that I basically took a publisher file, removed 10 things it had on the front except for 3 dots, put my name, email, phone, address, and company name, and that was all. The back of it is designed as I said in #4.

Edit: I did say I can email it to you, but it looks pretty horrible on the computer. If you really care, I will put it in the mail tomorrow if you want to see it. I can send it over email, but guarantee you will think it's horrible. In person, I get a lot of good comments about it because of how simple it is, no one has to think about it at all.
 

AgaBoogaBoo

Lifer
Feb 16, 2003
26,108
5
81
I should say that these rules don't apply to graphic designers, the best ones I've met have had very nice (beyond amazing) business cards. The other exception is if you're someone that has done something to change the world, you can have whatever the hell you want at that point because everyone you hand your card to is going to hold onto it.
 

AgaBoogaBoo

Lifer
Feb 16, 2003
26,108
5
81
Originally posted by: alien42
throw that away and start from scratch.
If he did what he thought was right, he might end up with the same thing. In threads like this, you really have to give him some points to think about and not just say it's bad.
 

Martin

Lifer
Jan 15, 2000
29,178
1
81
Sorry, but I think that's pretty bad.

If you're not a designer, just go with something generic - look at other business cards and put all your elements in the same places. In fact, this bothered me so much, I just went ahead and made a sample one that looks better to me: http://individual.utoronto.ca/marty/bc.gif

I also suck at graphical design, so that's why I whenever I have to make stuff like that I for the generic look. Better than looking amateurish IMO.