Business Cards

Having a business card, as explained here, represents your company's brand. Holding the name, contact details and possibly some info on your services, it is usually the first way a person will be introduced to your brand, exempt from the internet. 

Carrying a business card at all times covey's professionalism and preparation to a high standard. Being able to have a conversation with a client or stranger about your services and then hand over a business card shows your formality and customer service greatly. The client will remember your conversation due to the business card. By being a confident speaker and having a great business card, a client is more likely to choose you over someone who did not.

Still to this day business cards remain the fastest way to give someone your details in person. Instead of sending someone all of your details, a physical card holding the info can be passed out in under a second. The benefit of a physical card is the care. The client knows that without said card, they won't find you. Therefore they may be tempted to find your website, social media and save your phone number incase they lose the card. Compared to sending a message with all of theses details, the client has done this themselves, meaning that they are less likely to forget you like a message would.

Business cards also give a personal and physical sense to you and the client. When handing over a business card, most people are seeing each other in person. Regularly ending with a handshake, handing a physical card over to a person gives them the impression that you are giving them all your attention, unlike an email that can be copy and pasted.

Having a professional business card gives a quick first impression to the client. Is your card covered with color and fancy fonts? well you must be a bubbly and warming person. Is your card sleek and simple? Well you must be focused and well thought out. All of these different layouts on your card give the client an initial impression on you and how you function.

Some cultures, although uncommon in the UK, have business rituals if you would say. An example would be Hong Kong and Japan. In Hong Kong it is seen as a sign of respect to give your card to someone if they give you theirs. If you do not have a card on hand, you will most likely lose the client. Similarly in Japan, the initial impression of how your business, is judged on the quality of paper used for your card. 

Having a business card also shares the sense of trust. Sharing personal information to strangers isn't a normal thing to do. However, by sharing your details on a card, the client will feel like you want them you are making an effort to build a bond. This will result in a higher call back rate due to the time and professionalism you have displayed to them.

This is the most common form of a business card. Clearly displaying the necessary information for contact and travel, it shows what I wish to display onto my card. However, since I do not have a premises, I will change the addresses for my social media accounts. 

Personally, I like the simpleness of the card. It is not overwhelming with information and is easy to understand. Also, by having a simple design, it will come across to the client that you work simple and do what is needed. Instead of trying to win the client over with fancy texts and fonts, my sleek and simple design will use enigma code in getting them to check out my social media and websites.

This is a style of business card I appreciate and wish to take the sum of my inspiration from. It is sleek, clean, tidy and is straight to the point. Although In my opinion, if wanting to hire a dog walker, you would rather have a business card that is more bubbly. This would make the client feel like their dog is in caring and happy hands. However due to me wanting to demonstrate professional and high standard quality images to my clients, a sleek design works better for me.

This business card is extremely simple. Although the design is pleasing to the eye, it would work best for me once my brand has more recognition. For the company on the card, they dont need to add much context due to the fact almost everyone knows what a spa and hotel entails. However, by having such a sleek and clean card, it conveys luxury and wealth to the client. 

For my card, I wish to take the shine away from it. Their logo has a shine as seen above. Adding textures or features into the card will make your card memorable and stand out from the rest. Therefore I wish to have my logo shine as well.

For the reverse of my card I wish to include a small paragraph about myself and introduce myself to the client at hand. This should act as an icebreaker and should help the client connect with me more. By using direct address in my paragraph I can convey myself talking to the client physically. 

On the right hand side I will include some examples of my work so the client can see what the quality of my work is and see what sectors I specialise within. 

In order to jot my ideas down quickly, I used a websites free card designer to help me visualise my thoughts. After looking at this idea, I still very much stand with keeping simplicity within my business cards.

When making this draft I thought i would try and add my contact details on the back and see if my decision changed... It did not. I would still like to keep the back for my work and my introduction. 

Overall this quick draft has helped me preview and solidify the style of card I would like to create.

I began making my business card by looking at what a business cards size is. This is so I can have the correct dimensions of a card and make sure it follows the conventions of a card.

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I made my card canvas the correct size. However, once I saw the canvas, the quality was poor. Therefore I changed my dimensions to be 35 inches by 20 inches. This increased size solved the quality issue and means my physical card will be high in definition.

Due to the fact that I want my card to have black and white parts to it, using grey as my background works best as it means both will be visible on the card.

I pasted in my logo and then decided to use guides. Guides will assure that everything is equal and lines up perfectly within the card. Making sure everything lines up properly, means that my card will be professional and held to a high standard.

This is what the guides look like when applied. Since the guides are rectangles, I placed my text half a width from the side and a full height from the top. This means that my text is situated equally from the sides and top.

Wanting my texts to pop off of the screen, I added a drop shadow. When applying my drop shadow, i made sure that the distance, size and spread, made it so it was subtle. If it was too strong of a shadow, it would be hard to read the logo. 

I used an angle of 45 degrees for my shadow. In order to keep continuity throughout my card, all of my future drop shadows will have to be 45 degrees. Otherwise my lighting will not match and make the card look "off".

After applying a shadow, I wanted to make sure my logo was still easily read. Therefore I added a slight outer glow to the text. This gives my text a slight white border and assists in it being separated from the shadow, resulting in a better pop off the card. 

After wanting to originally add a shine to my logo, I decided that giving it a shine as well as a shadow, was too much. In response to this, I added a texture instead. This will be a unique point to the card. The rest of the card will be smooth and the writing that is "popping off the card" will be texturised. This reinforces the fact of the logo popping out and also will be the unique part of my card. Drawing as much focus to the logo through visual and physical edits, will in return make the client remember my logo more. In return, this should result in me standing out from the rest of the competition.

Color is not something I originally planned for within my card. However adding some color to my logo, again, attracts more attention. This will again assist in the fact of making my logo stand out from the rest of the card. It also gives a new sense of representation to my brand. 

I decided on red due to it being my favorite color. Therefore, I have decided that my brand colors are going to be black, white and red. This continuity of color will follow through into my website and online portfolios.

In order to make it fade, I used a solid color and applied a clipping mask. A clipping mask is a tool that applies the layer above to the layer below only. I then used a layer mask and the brush tool top paint away the red till i had a nice gradient of color.

Once my logo was finished I pasted in an instagram, website and phone logo. I again used my guides to help me position them right and make sure they were all the same size.

When it came to the logos, I wanted to give them a shadow again. However the website and phone logo came with a white background. Therefore, I used the blend if tool to take away the white.

Even after using the tool, photoshop would still cast a shadow of a box and not the logo. In response, I made each logo a smart object and re-rasterized them. This made the logos into a physical shape and not an image.

For the logos I added a shadow like before. However the difference between these and my logo is that they will not have a shine and not texture.

Finally I typed in my details of what I need and also made sure they lined up perfectly. I changed the text to black and gave no shadow. I gave no shadow due to the fact that these will hold the shine.

In order to demonstrate the shine I used a mask to paste in some white.

Then I went back, knowing that I had a white outer glow around my logo, and darkened my background. The texts are still visible and it makes the final front of the card look professional and sleek.

To begin the back of my logo, I began by pasting in my text and lining it up centrally within the left hand side of the page.

 Following the same processes of text alignment and guides, I wrote my small introduction paragraph and pasted in my images. I have 2 product, 2 landscape and 2 working images. I am very happy with how my business card has turned out. 

I would like this to be my final product. However I need to ask peers for feedback and see if they believe it could be improved in any way.

After receiving my feedback, I can see that I need to re-brighten my backgrounds and also add my email within my Card.

This is my final logo design and I am happy with the final outcome.

Throughout creating this card and logo, I have affirmed and evolved my current knowledge. Now I feel like I thoroughly understand how fonts, color and layout can effect the emotions evoked from my work. I have built upon my brand and my identity within the industry more. Having a logo, business card is going to assist me look more professional within my profession and make me stand out from the rest of the crowd. 

I believe that my card and logo will evolve in the future, in time with my reputation.

When I make my website, I will definitely continue with the same color scheme. Red, not only being my personal favorite color, is a menacing color. Having red may make the client have a sense of mystery about me and feel more inticed to use me for their professional products etc.