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What type of business card catches your eye?
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earthyvirgo



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 11 9:22 pm    Post subject: What type of business card catches your eye? Reply with quote
    

Following the four weekends of Helfa Gelf/Art Trail, I find I'm almost out of business cards, so the time has come to design myself some new ones.

Being in 'the arts', I would like something immediately recognisable, dramatic, creative, etc, etc. I'm playing with ideas around the card having something on it which reflects my linocutting/relief printing but is that getting a bit fussy and overly ambitious?

What do you like in a business card?
Clarity over quirky? What would make you pick one up and keep it rather than binning it a few weeks later?

EV

Cathryn



Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 11 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Because it's a piece of art in itself.

RichardW



Joined: 24 Aug 2006
Posts: 8443
Location: Llyn Peninsular North Wales
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 11 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I doubt that it will help you as yours should be more...... creative I think is the word.

But I tend to keep the ones that also serve another purpose. For instance, on Sat I spent the day at a local outdoor centre. One of the cards I got (the only one I kept) was a clear plastic sheet printed with the standard card details but also had printed on it map scale & grid ref roamers. In the past I have had ones with mini measures, conversion charts for various weights, measures & standards.


Keep it simple so that it shouts out & is distinctive. Most have to much on them.

That or ditch the cards & use small key fob ones. Again they have a use beyond being a card so get kept.

earthyvirgo



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 11 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

RichardW wrote:
I doubt that it will help you as yours should be more...... creative I think is the word.

But I tend to keep the ones that also serve another purpose. For instance, on Sat I spent the day at a local outdoor centre. One of the cards I got (the only one I kept) was a clear plastic sheet printed with the standard card details but also had printed on it map scale & grid ref roamers. In the past I have had ones with mini measures, conversion charts for various weights, measures & standards.


Keep it simple so that it shouts out & is distinctive. Most have to much on them.

That or ditch the cards & use small key fob ones. Again they have a use beyond being a card so get kept.


I like the idea of something useful too Richard.

A little mini-map of N Wales on one side with all the waterfall locations I've done prints of dotted on it?

Maybe a bit ambitious ....

EV

vegplot



Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 11 10:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Just be you. Your typical audience is very different to other types of business. Design the card to reflect you and the work you do.

Not sure why I'm typing this, you're only 6 feet away and not deaf.

marigold



Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 7:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

vegplot wrote:
Just be you. Your typical audience is very different to other types of business. Design the card to reflect you and the work you do.

Not sure why I'm typing this, you're only 6 feet away and not deaf.



Katieowl



Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 8:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I think it should have your artwork on

There is a house near here that has a sign up out side that says

'Her Name (can't remember)
Paintings, Pottery and Textiles

There is no way I'd knock, as I haven't the foggiest what the stuff is like and if it turned out to be 'chimpanaise' (family word but I'm sure you can imagine!) wouldn't it be dreadful to have to look around and leave without buying anything!!! A little picture on the sign would tell me all I needed to know...

Anyone who picks your card up has a visual reminder of your lovely stuff, and doesn't then have to try and mentally match everything they've seen to a name.

Kate

earthyvirgo



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 8:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Katieowl wrote:
I think it should have your artwork on

There is a house near here that has a sign up out side that says

'Her Name (can't remember)
Paintings, Pottery and Textiles

There is no way I'd knock, as I haven't the foggiest what the stuff is like and if it turned out to be 'chimpanaise' (family word but I'm sure you can imagine!) wouldn't it be dreadful to have to look around and leave without buying anything!!! A little picture on the sign would tell me all I needed to know...

Anyone who picks your card up has a visual reminder of your lovely stuff, and doesn't then have to try and mentally match everything they've seen to a name.

Kate


Yep, that's what vegplot thinks too.
My current card has an image completely covering one side and my details on t'other.

I was trying to be clever and think of a way to reflect what I do but perhaps that's a bit of a waste of puff.

Time to choose a new image tho'.
And a suitable colour for the flip side.

Text will be minimal

Ann Lewis
artist printmaker

www
tel
email

EV

Katieowl



Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 8:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I'm a keeper of cards myself...so I do think that an image on one side would be something that I'd pop on a ledge somewhere. Maybe you could go 'non~standard' size if you wanted to stand out? Longer maybe?

Kate

earthyvirgo



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Katieowl wrote:
I'm a keeper of cards myself...so I do think that an image on one side would be something that I'd pop on a ledge somewhere. Maybe you could go 'non~standard' size if you wanted to stand out? Longer maybe?

Kate


A bit larger all round might be good ... but still pocketable.

During the Helfa Gelf Art Trail days, several people openly admitted that the little offset/offcuts/misprint gift tags I made and bagged up in 2's and 3's to sell might well end up in tiny frames, not on presents to their nearest and dearest

EV

Toffer



Joined: 01 Nov 2009
Posts: 247
Location: Sutton St Edmund, Lincs
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 9:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I always prefer the simple, clean and unfussy designs myself.

Be careful about going larger than standard as a lot of people keep them in standard files / wallets etc and what doesn't fit may get binned.

Rowanlady



Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 195
Location: NE Hampshire
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 9:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Just been to a 'festival' and have been sorting out the cards, etc that I picked up - so I went and looked at the 'keep' pile and the discards

Obviously I have discarded those of areas I'm not interested in but were thrust upon me!!

Discarded -

NO website/Email/phone link clearly (and big enough) displayed
Plastic-coated (it was a green festival)
Flashy, over-coloured, "american" gumph

Kept -

cards that are neat, instantly show the product/service (words or pictures)
coloured (lightly) so they stand out
and quirky -

Your lovely prints make me drool - I will (eventually) buy some - I just CAN'T decide which I like most

judith



Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 11:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I am a non-keeper of cards.
As a rule, I write the details in my Filofax and chuck the card when I get home. It would have to be something very special to make me keep it - as Richard says, something useful, or something very lovely, like one of your prints.

Other than that, keep it to the very basic information - I don't want to know your life history, just how to contact you.

BahamaMama



Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 2315
Location: Away with the fairies
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 11:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I keep the ones that instantly remind me of what the contact does, so a print of one of your designs would definitely be a 'keeper'.

Re the waterfall idea, my first impression was 'that sounds nice', two minutes later I am thinking, too small, too fussy, advertising waterfalls and not you

earthyvirgo



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan
PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 11 11:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

BahamaMama wrote:
I keep the ones that instantly remind me of what the contact does, so a print of one of your designs would definitely be a 'keeper'.

Re the waterfall idea, my first impression was 'that sounds nice', two minutes later I am thinking, too small, too fussy, advertising waterfalls and not you


You're right, it would be a distraction.

But, it is something I'm going to build into my new website - each linocut which is landscape based will have a Googlemap, so people can go to the place which has inspired the work.

EV

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