Whenever anyone mentions the words ‘business card’, i think of this video. Nobody is more passionate about business cards than that guy…
A few years ago i ordered 250 ‘free’ business cards from vistaprint. Just to have. I just had to pay for postage which cost about €5 at the time.
Last week at gradireland, we were told about the importance of business cards and how it looks professional if you can whip out a business card rather than scribble your number down on a piece of paper.
And that’s true… that’s the reason why i got those business cards a few years ago. Most of them are probably still lying in a drawer somewhere… as i pointed out at the time, the quality was poor, i had my gmail address on them and the design just screamed ‘template’. So i quickly scrapped the idea of taking them around with me… a bad business card, i feel, can do a lot of damage.
The design, the print quality, the weight, the creativeness… there’s a lot of talking being done when you hand someone a business card, and it’s the business card that does the talking. At least that’s my own opinion, i demand the best of the best from a lot of things and small detail like this matters to me.
So i didn’t just go with default templates this time around, i bought a business card design i liked the look of on graphicriver.net and tweaked it slightly.
This particular design was simple, creative and clever. On the front, we have a ‘tag cloud’ with a list of all of my skills / areas of interest. It’s a great way of saying “here’s what i can do” without actually saying “here’s what i can do”.
On the back we have a very simple information section. Name, title, contact details. Nice font, nice colours, nice contrast…
Iordered 50 regular sized business cards & 100 mini cards (smaller business cards) through moo. Total cost €36.65 delivered. More expensive than ‘free’ but personally i think that if you’re going to the trouble of getting business cards, you may as well do it right and aim for best print quality & design you can possibly get. Which is what i’ve done here…
This time, because the cards are customized and of a higher quality, i’m more likely to take them around with me and hand them out. Of course it helps that i have a website and a custom email address. It’s all part of branding, selling, marketing etc… if you were to give me a ‘free’ business card with your name, @gmail.com or @hotmail.com address, no website, and give yourself some IT title, i wouldn’t be impressed. I’d probably hold that against you even though i shouldn’t. That’s just being honest.
So business cards are important & important not just to have, but to get right. It’s an opportunity to impress. A bit like a website i suppose. A bad website means you’re a bad person 🙂 That’s what my heart will say. My head will tell me not to blurt that stuff out or make those assumptions. So if i think like that, i’m sure others do to.
So the next time someone asks me for my phone number, they’re gonna get a whole lot more 😈
Ha ha, very funny but his business card is nonetheless truly horrible
Nice design Sean …. should bring work your way.
Best of luck with it!
cheers, yeah i’m not too concerned about drumming up work at the minute, i’ve more than enough on my plate! it was more for the professional value / appearance and it’s also a bit of promotion for the blog… one bad thing about this site is it’s name… it’s not easy to pronounce / remember so the card clears that up..