8 Simple and Easy to Implement Design Tips for your Business CardsBusiness Cards Design Terry de Guia
February 12, 2008
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More than anything else, your business cards design should establish
your business brand. The values and identity of your business may be
complex and difficult to translate to anything concrete, much less a
small card, but doing so will help differentiate you from other
businesses.
1. Translate values into colors
Find
colors that best evoke the values you want your image to hold. Warm
colors appeal to the senses they are generally associated with action,
liveliness, and passion. Cool colors like the phrases cool logic and
cool minded is associated more with logic, stability, and compliance.
2. Work with Grids
There
are proportions that simply look good. Invoke a simplified golden ratio
with the rule of thirds. Simply divide your card in 3x3 grids that make
nine boxes. Use this as a guideline to create the right proportions for
your design. When necessary, divide your grids in half or thirds to
make even more guides.
3. Create Balance
Perfectly
symmetrical designs maybe boring, but creating asymmetrical balance may
be intimidating. Just remember balance is about the perceived weight of
objects from visual clues such as colors, size, shadows, and quantity.
For example a big object on the left side can be balanced by a number
of small objects on the right.
4. Never Upstage Your Content
It
can be tempting to overdo the design and fill the background with
different colors. Remember though that the most important aspect of
your business card is the content. When tempted, go back to the rule of
thirds. Two-thirds should contain content, one third can hold your
illustration or picture.
5. Use one to three colors.
Except
for photographs, it’s difficult to create unity with more than three
colors. It may result in discordant scheme where colors are neither
contrasting nor similar to your dominant color. If you want a full
colored card, work with gradients or use similar colors. Of course you
can use different shades of each color.
6. Colorful cards should follow a color scheme
Work
the classics and you won’t go wrong. You can use a triadic color scheme
that uses three equally spaced colors in the color scheme like green,
purple, and orange. You can also use a split complimentary color scheme
that has one contrasting color and two similar colors. This will give
you a striking design.
7. Use a maximum of three fonts.
Like
colors, too many fonts will make your design confusing. Minimize the
use of fonts to three. Stylish fonts like scripts should be used
sparingly and only when the rest of the fonts are bland. If you already
have design elements and colors incorporated into your card, be sure
you use simple fonts in like Arial, and those in the Sans Serif family.
8. Get Inspiration
Find a collection of
business cards design which you can use to inspire you. Use the same
color scheme or follow the layout. Of course, it goes without saying
that you can use the principles behind the card that inspired you and
tweak it for your own business.
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