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Business card design advice
LewieP
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am in the process of designing some business cards for PAX. These are going to be for just sharing contact details, but also for networking in a professional sense.
I am going to be (hopefully) networking with publishers/developers for my blog and podcast, hoping to get people to interview on my podcast, and contacts for getting review copies of games. It's not by any means my primary reason for going to PAX, but it is a fantastic opportunity.
What kind of information should I be putting on this card, I am thinking:
Name,
Blog name/address,
Email/MSN,
Phone Number,
Address,
I also don't know whether to incorporate this image into the design. It's on my blog homepage you see.
Also, which is best, giving my real name, or the name I use online? I go by LewieP on the blog, which is an abbreviation of my real name.
Is there anything I am missing out, is it a good idea to include a brief description of what the blog is? Something along the lines of "UK Video Games bargain blog and podcast"?
I am going for Tahoma font
I am going to be (hopefully) networking with publishers/developers for my blog and podcast, hoping to get people to interview on my podcast, and contacts for getting review copies of games. It's not by any means my primary reason for going to PAX, but it is a fantastic opportunity.
What kind of information should I be putting on this card, I am thinking:
Name,
Blog name/address,
Email/MSN,
Phone Number,
Address,
I also don't know whether to incorporate this image into the design. It's on my blog homepage you see.
Also, which is best, giving my real name, or the name I use online? I go by LewieP on the blog, which is an abbreviation of my real name.
Is there anything I am missing out, is it a good idea to include a brief description of what the blog is? Something along the lines of "UK Video Games bargain blog and podcast"?
I am going for Tahoma font
LewieP on
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You need to use your real name. Put your handle in parentheses if you must, but if you want to look professional, leave it off. Only Fatal1ty uses his handle as his business, and he's a douche.
You can probably skip your physical address if it's too large, it isn't relevant: no-one is going to post things to you.
You also don't need a description. People don't pick up random business cards and then go to web sites because of descriptions on them. People take business cards because they were interested in you to begin with. It just has to be unique enough that 4 days later they remember "Oh, that's the guy who said he had that blog". A distinctive card design helps in this.
You don't need your MSN. Again, it's not pertinent to people getting in touch. They have your URL and email address for text, and phone number for speech. That's enough.
And put the e-mail at the bottom of the card, it looks nicer that way.
And make sure the cardstock is something thick. There's nothing worse than getting business cards that are printed on one step up from copier paper. I automatically think "cheap"
I'd encourage you to have at least one side remain predominantly white. It's handy if you need to write any extra info on the card.
On that note don't pick a glossy cardstock if you have the choice. While it looks and feels slick and professional it's a bitch to jot down extra info on and the ink likes to smear.
I had business cards like that at my last job and they were useless for writing notes, which was something i needed to do a lot.
Anyway, my threadjack is sort of the same thing. I intend to get some cards made up to take to conferences and such, and they're going to be a dual purpose of social cards (probably most use) and professional cards.
I intend to get them printed by moo.com, on recycled paper. One side will have a graphic, the other side will have my contact details and a fair amount of white space for note-jotting.
The point of the graphic, albeit DrFrylock taking this piss somewhat, is that it will make my card recognisable and less throwaway: as I'm not a business I don't have a fancy business logo to put on the contact details side, so I feel like it needs some sort of unique differentiator to prevent it ending up in the trash can in-tray.
Does anyone have any ideas of what they think would be good?
I thought of a vector art joystick/game pad on white, but I thought that was too cliche.
I then thought of having 6x4 tiles. Each one is the head of a protagonist of a game, alphabetically. The 2x2 square starting with C in the top-right will be a picture of me (the same blue/yellow graphic as at http://blog.chris.to), which will cover a couple of other letters, but make me stand out. The idea would be that some of the characters would be intentionally obscure, so people might have a bit of fun trying to work out all the characters.
Again, like I said, I'm not trying to be all fancy and lah-de-dah, just trying to make sure people keep hold of the card and go "oh hey, that's different" rather than "that's the 30th card I got today, are you hungry Mr. Trash Can?"
Raised lettering and watermark also a must.
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