Whether you're making cold calls on new clients, exchanging contact information in a social setting, or introducing your services via a letter, your business card conveys volumes about your professionalism, your creativity and your ability to get to the point without clutter. There are two schools of thought insofar as making business cards from scratch and printing them yourself or uploading all of your information to a template provided by an online printing company. While the quality of a professional printing service is often superior, you can still make professional-looking business cards at home.
Step 1
Take a good look at the different business cards you've collected and divide them into two stacks; specifically, the ones that really stand out as original and the ones that are boring and convey very little about the personality of the individual or his business. Within these respective stacks, take a moment to consider how many of these companies you've actually established a relationship with. There's a good chance that the ones you've never called on and have only retained their cards out of politeness or laziness just aren't that enticing.
Step 2
Get inspiration by going online to websites such as AG Design, Vista Print, and Life Clever (see Resources). Bookmark or print out the business card designs that catch your eye, especially those that are for businesses similar in mission and scope to your own.
Step 3
Determine how much content you want on your business card. For instance, do you want to include your company logo and/or slogan or do you simply want to provide your name, title, company and contact information? If you're starting up a brand new enterprise, it's important that the design of your business card--including the color selection, font, and graphics--is consistent with whatever you plan to use for your stationery, brochures and media kits.
Step 4
Decide on a color scheme that is consistent with the type of product or service you sell. This can be tricky because even if your favorite color in the world is hot pink and you want to use it as your backdrop, a prospective client may not take you seriously if what you're pitching is your expertise as a consultant in international relations.
Step 5
Choose a font that doesn't require a lot of deciphering on the part of the recipient. If you get too "cute" with your font choice, you're not going to come across as professional. Likewise, it's important to pick one font and stick with it for the entire design. You can adjust the point size (your most important info will always be the largest) but never drop down to characters that are too small to read. The display of numbers (phone, fax, cell) varies from one font to the next. In your experimentation with different fonts for your business card, always make sure that the numbers are as easy to read as the text. Courier, Times New Roman, Bookman and Palatino are good choices.
Step 6
Decide whether the physical placement of the content is going to be in a horizontal format or vertical. The majority of business cards utilize a horizontal motif. In certain industries, however, a vertical layout could be effective, such as a tall stack of books for someone who operates an independent bookstore or a long trailing vine for the owner of a nursery and garden center.
Step 7
Decide whether you want a matte finish for the card or a glossy one. Glossy will hold up better over the long run but it's also going to be more expensive.
Step 8
Purchase card stock for the project. Online distributors such as The Paper Mill Store and Avery (see Resources), office supply stores, and even franchise copier centers such as Kinko's sell packages of perforated card stock sheets that can be run through a home printer and then separated into individual cards. The only drawback with this is that the perforations don't always tear smoothly and may give the cards a homemade look and feel. If, however, you're only making business cards to casually hand out to friends and relatives, this may not matter to you.
Step 9
Enter and align the content. If you don't have a software program such as Avery or HP already loaded on your computer, don't worry. Every package of card stock or labels you purchase comes with its own practice page that instructs you on the margins to set up in a Word document master so that each card will be neatly centered. Make several copies of the practice page so that you can experiment before you actually load any of the card stock in your printer. If you do have a labels software program, your job will be even easier because you'll be specifying the product number of the card stock you're using and then designing your card directly on the template that pops up.
Step 10
Proofread the card's content thoroughly before you start printing it out. While you can easily correct any glitches if you're making cards on an as needed basis at home, an online printing service won't be as forgiving. In fact, you'll have to initial a confirmation page that you're 100 percent happy with what you're submitting. If you later catch an error, neither an online service nor a neighborhood printer will refund your money.
Step 11
Make a backup copy of the business card design.
Skill: Moderate
Ingredients:
- Computer
- Laser printer
- Cardstock
- Graphic design software
Tip: Most people only think of printing information on one side of the card. The back side, however, can be used in clever ways for writing appointments, listing specialized services, displaying a website link or even entitling the bearer to discounts if presented at the time of a purchase.
If you're not an artist, there are plenty of graphic design software programs to assist you. Likewise, you may want to scroll through websites that offer free clip art. The only drawback to this is that someone else may be using the same graphics for a similar business of their own.
Warning: If you're designing cards for a home-based business, it's generally better to list a post office box rather than your home address or to just leave your address off altogether.
Keep things as simple and uncluttered as possible. It's often misleading when you're previewing how something looks on your computer monitor and then discover that shrinking it down to a standardized card makes all of the information melt together.
As experimental as you can be with the card's design, resist the temptation to make the card itself bigger or smaller than the traditional size. The exception to this is if you design a fold-over card that looks like the standard size but then opens up to be 3-1/2 x 4 inches.
The thicker the card stock, the more likely it is to jam in a home computer. Rather than load a stack of card stock all at once, feed one sheet at a time.
Putting a photo of yourself, your children or your kittens on your business card is rarely effective as a marketing tool, especially since these images usually have nothing to do with the products or services you provide.
Keyword: business cards, logos, marketing, PR, graphic design
