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Selling yourself via small cards.
Mr.Brick
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Buisness card thread?
Me and a friend are getting closer to launching our small budget VFX, Editing, Directing, Digital Imaging company and we just rolled out our first run buisness card. Eeach run will be vastly different- eventually using different types of paper and mediums.
Our company is super small and we just finished up our first two projects and have been getting awesome feed back on our work from the clients and people who have seen it. So next step is to fish around for more clients and then step it up to a web site ect.. anyways- this thread is not about that. Its about selling your self via small pieces of card stock.
Here is the first:
(important details blurred due to anti-spam)
Post up your own! Every good artist should have a buisness card.
Me and a friend are getting closer to launching our small budget VFX, Editing, Directing, Digital Imaging company and we just rolled out our first run buisness card. Eeach run will be vastly different- eventually using different types of paper and mediums.
Our company is super small and we just finished up our first two projects and have been getting awesome feed back on our work from the clients and people who have seen it. So next step is to fish around for more clients and then step it up to a web site ect.. anyways- this thread is not about that. Its about selling your self via small pieces of card stock.
Here is the first:
(important details blurred due to anti-spam)
Post up your own! Every good artist should have a buisness card.
pew pew pew
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I want to you to click this link. Now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
I disagree that the image is to distracting from the overall goal of the card. If you look closely you can see that it's actually pixelated and the way you incorporated the company name in the corner looks pretty darn nice. However, if I were you I would lose the jagged lines that cut in to the image. I know it may fit with the "surgery" concept but even at this size it just looks dirty and distracting.
The bottam of the pixel burst stamp is also jagged and seems to become a little bit fuzzy on the lower spikes. I'm not sure if this was intentional but again it just looks sloppy. I'm also not really digging the slant on the lower right corner of the image. I know it helps make the stamp pop but it would probably frame the text on the bottam better if it were straight.
As Mykonos said, right now this is more so just a nice sample of your work rather then a business card. In a way this is a good thing given the type of company you are starting but at the same time, you really are losing the goal of a business card.
I'd like to see some of the other variations you spoke of. Also, props on the neat thread idea.
That was amusing, but not really something to be taken seriously. If you're working with visual art, having something that stands out a lot can be really good for getting your foot in the door, and getting people to call you back to check out that portfolio.
If you're using your business card as a promotional tool, rather than a simple way of exchanging details rather than with pen and paper, I agree.
However, I don't think the OP design achieves either of the objectives you listed above. Unfortunately a large, pixelated image, small contact text and generic iconography do not a memorable impression make. At the size you've shown I'm having trouble deciphering what the image is, and what about it is supposed to be relevant. At a smaller size it's likely to make less sense.
The business name is already very evocative, I'm surprised the OP didn't follow this route to find a design solution.
I really think good business card design comes down to two things; encapsulating the personality of the person to whom the card belongs, and being good enough to not throw away. Once your design does both of these things it will be worth handing out as promo.
That would be horribly expensive to print, full color and double sided? This is assuming you're not printing it at OfficeMax... because then it will be cheap but look like crap.
I don't agree with the simple desgin idea. There are many kinds of potential business out there. A simple card with simple details may work for a lawyer, dentist or human calculator- but not for visual arts. Its a small promotional tool that the goal is simply sell your self with. I think simplicity is a good thing, even though its got lots going on, I feel the goal is simple and effective.
The image in the background was iffy. I changed it to a closer texture shot of some cool metal and it works %87 better now. Ill post it later.
The bottom of the "pixel love" ect looks fuzzy because of the .jpeg compression. Those elements were done in illustrator and are vector. I think the black bars on the right too are also not working, just wasn't %100 sure.
What?
If I had no worries about budget in printing I would make a business card that featured my logo and some other strong sense of my brand, and ship it with something permanent and less losable for promotion, coasters or whatever.
I need to make myself a business card. I keep having instances where I'm asked for one.
Your design doesn't need to be 'simple'. It needs to be clear. And what I mean by that is, it should offer a clear impression of the services you provide and the manner in which you provide them. Branding, I guess. The thing is, the services you offer are pretty complex, so I don't see the point cluttering up the contact details with more stuff that doesn't work for you.
Given that space is at such a premium on a business card, they only make really effective promotional tools if you're clever with the format. Failing some amazing break-out idea, you should consider a hierarchy of importance for all those elements. Your current arrangement says that the image is the most important element, your business name second, iconography third and your contact details last. I see some problems with that arrangement given the current elements in place. Does that red pixel-heart burst thing really need to be there? It just seems like clutter.
I'd focus on the business name, a description of your services and your contact details. Everything else, for a business card, should be secondary. That doesn't mean it can't be visual, it's just that the visual really shouldn't dominate to the detriment of other elements in a format this tight. If you think it's fine how it is, I'd be interested to know what function the image is performing that is so important it deserves more space than any other element.