
The Art of the Business Card - jmorin007
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/05/the-art-of-the.html
======
markbao
My business cards: <http://files.markbao.com/bcardsnew.png>

Keeping it simple. (I'm the sole owner of Avecora, which is why it has my
other info on it as well.)

Backside of the card is light grey, so you can write over it if needed. Font
size _is_ large enough, but not huge, as Kawasaki's is.

Thoughts?

~~~
Raphael
Classy.

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boucher
The front of the card is excellent (Guy Kawasaki), but I hate the back. In my
mind, the most important part, after the name, is how to actually contact you.
On Guy's card, that info just blends in with his three websites (seriously, he
needs to put all three?). I like the simplicity, but my experience with all
black business cards has been that it really sucks you can't write on them.

~~~
silencio
I'm such a whore for black business cards. My personal business/freelance
business card is black but it's also matte
(<http://www.flickr.com/photos/chix0r/1409350187/>), and half of one side is
not black. It's entirely possible to write on it..I haven't had many problems
with that, and even if you write on the black part, you can usually read most
pen/pencil marks on it. In the event you can't read it straight on, tilting at
an angle usually does the trick.

Some of mine are braille embossed though, but the people I give those to
usually don't need to write anything on it.

It's the glossy black ones that are more annoying to me.

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petercooper
If you've designed a business card for yourself, here's a tip: Give the card
to your dad!

If your dad's anything like mine - over 50 and suffering from the torments of
age - he won't be able to read your type without squinting through his
glasses. He won't get the subtle reference you made in the graphics. And he
definitely won't be able to figure out what your phone number is.

Thing is.. _many_ of the people with the money, the power, and the NEED for
business cards are those older people with fading eyesight! Do you really
think some 20-something upstart needs to see business cards? We've got e-mail,
text messaging, and iPhones for that! Business cards are for a wider, more
general audience.. so unless you run an avant-garde design agency, design your
cards with that general audience in mind.

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rms
The consensus from the last thread about the best place to get prints was
<http://www.overnightprints.com/>. They do rounded corners on business cards
which is deliciously web 2.0. Make sure to google for a coupon code.

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boucher
I don't have great design skills, and these certainly have flaws, but I'm
pleased with the way they came out:

<http://rossboucher.com/downloads/cards.png>

Comments welcome.

~~~
dkokelley
Very cool. How well does the back (280 North logo on what looks like a road)
print out?

This is going to sound trivial, but to me, something about the text in the
top-right corner on the white side seems off. I think the colors are too dark
compared to what you have on the other side.

It might just be my monitor or the fact that they aren't in print to me.
Otherwise, I really like the simplicity of the design. Very straight forward
and too the point, which is good (and the big print also makes it easier to
read).

~~~
boucher
"How well does the back...print"

It looks really good printed actually, which I was a little surprised by.

"something about the text in the top-right corner on the white side seems off"

You're right, and the colors are poor choices. The correct colors looked
pretty bad too though, so it was trying to find a balance.

------
tom
Am I really so old? The black back/front just does not work for me. I know I
don't write on cards folks give me as much as I used to, but I still do at
times and being able to is a big plus. Not being able to make a quick note
because I forgot my white paint marker is just plain less smart then something
I can write on with just about any pen/pencil/bloody finger/greasy stick I can
find.

------
Frocer
I am looking for clean and simple business card layout like this..

Any recommendation on sites that do business card design?

~~~
calvin
These are the ones I've checked out:

48 Hour Print - <http://www.48hourprint.com/>

Vista Print - <http://www.vistaprint.com/> (not to be confused w/ Windows
Vista

And another creative site I'd recommend checking out is <http://www.moo.com/>
\-- they've got a lot of creative sort of cards. Not necessarily great for
business cards, but can work well as thank-you notes and things of that
nature.

------
Zak
When I went to startup school in 2005, I made business cards containing my
contact details in a Lisp plist and printed them using one of those cheap
perforated sheets. They went over quite well.

------
TrevorJ
I like this card. It works. It just works.

------
simianstyle
Look up Daniel Ocean's business card.

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logjam
Friends, you do NOT need business cards.

You spend your time creating and learning and meeting interesting people
instead of obsessing over unimportant details like business card designs. You
meet someone. You want them to know they are personally important to you. You
want them to be able to contact you.

Just take out the simple, elegant, paper notebook you habitually carry to
record thoughts, names, lists, etc. Keep talking. Print your name and the way
you would prefer to be contacted. Add the date. Hand the piece of paper to
your "contact".

Immediately you have something beyond the trading of little uniform squares of
bland cardboard.

~~~
wheels
I disagree. If you're going to mixers for startups, which for us is how we're
hoping to stir up customers, it's good to be able to give them something to
hang onto. It's a lot less clumsy than having to reach for a pen and paper.
Why do I say this? Because I tried pen and paper at the last one that I went
to. Yesterday I ordered business cards.

That said, I don't think it's important that they're impressive early on. If
we're going to impress people it's going to be with what we say, not with our
cards. The card has one function: so that they still have our contact info
when they get back to their office. I got the cheapest ones I could find (50
for €12) and spent all of about half an hour sorting that out.

~~~
wanorris
> If we're going to impress people it's going to be with what we say, not with
> our cards.

Good design is important, especially for a website. If your business card is
ugly, what is your site going to look like?

But exotic materials or obviously expensive printing techniques don't signal
frugal, which ought to be an important quality in a startup founder.

~~~
wheels
The business cards that I ordered are all just text, black on white, in Times.
On the left in bigger print is our name and slogan, on the right is my name,
title, email address, phone number and our website. I'd love to have something
well designed, but if you stay minimal, you can usually avoid being overtly
ugly.

Clean design is important, but impressing people with our design skills is
less core for us than most news.YC readers since we're providing tools to
integrate to other sites (at the data-level) rather than user-accessible
components. We just need to look professional, not so much exciting.

Plus I think that having a design that makes a notable impression is possible,
but to get above the run-of-the-mill nice looking cards, you're going to pay.
That's fine if you're Guy Kawasaki. For us, I'm just hoping that the people
that would remember me anyway remember me plus have my email address.

I couldn't tell you what any of the cards that I collected at my last outing
looked like. I copied them into my address book at home, synched to my phone,
connected to the folks on LinkedIn / Xing, and threw them in the recycling
bin. :-)

