Word and Image: Business Cards

Business cards are a great way to promote your business and get important information to your clients and customers. A combonaion of words and images or a logo help give visual interest while also giving important information. Some desgins, however, are poorly designed and can confuse the consumer or potential client. Logos design and logo choice can also become confusing if used improperly. There are a few tips to help avoid these issues and give impressed feedback from the clients.
When trying to get the information of the business onto a little card, it can sometimes be difficult to fit it all together properly that gives a visual appeal and organization. When designing a business card it is important to remember to keep the lines with the address in close proxcimity to each other to show that they belong together. This tactic will avoid confusion of what the address is while being within the proxcimity of other important information, such as a phone number. Another helpful tip is to keep all of the text in the same alignment. If the lines of text are not aligned, whether it be flush left, flush right, or centered, it could cause unorganization to the point that the mind to feel stressed which is not something you want a potential client to think about, but rather how amazing the business sounds.
Logos are wonderful tools that help the public quickly identify a business or service. For example, a unique logo for a hair salon could be a dandelion flower made out of salon sissors. The public would be able to identify the sissors and get a general idea of the services the business offers. Other businesses choose to use more of a design approch rather than use a logo, which also works very well. For example, a business that provides waxing, facials, and other skin asthetics wanted to use an african theme for her business, so she decided to have brown zebra stipes with an orange squares. Her business has the same brown and orange colors painted on her walls along with various african art. Some businesses dont have very successful logo designs even though their intentions are sinser. For more information on bad logo design, check out my past blog post: http://ashleysworldofdesign.blogspot.com/2010/10/logosthen-and-now-good-and-bad.html. If these tips are kept in mind a bad business card desgin will become a rare occassion, especially if another person looks at the desgin and gives positive critisism. There are even books written to help avoid simple mistakes when designing.
Here is one book that has helped me in the design processes: http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Williams/dp/0321193857
The two examples I gave are desgins that I have done for small businesses