Business Cards
Long before you open, you will want to design and produce your business cards. These can be a fairly inexpensive and convenient way to market your new shop. There are many good design programs out now so that you could try to design these by yourself. You do want to make sure these look professional, though, so even if you do most of the work yourself, you may want to employ a graphic design for artistic input.
Whether you use a designer only as a consultant or for the whole project, there are many sources for finding these artistic individuals. If you have an area college with an art program, you might try contacting the school to see if anyone is interested in bulking up his or her portfolio. Many of these students are entirely capable of producing professional designs even though they have not had much on-the-job experience.
Many designers also do freelance work. Contact one of the professional design organizations, such as the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), to see if they can provide you with a directory of freelancers. The AIGA can be contacted at: AIGA, 164 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010, 212-807-1990, www.aiga.org. Also, look at www.sologig.com for freelancers. If you are designing your own business card, be sure to keep the following design principles in mind:
• Alignment
• Contrast
• Repetition
• Proximit
Contrast needs to be obvious or it might look like a mistake. For instance, you can bold all your headers in a brochure and keep all the other text as regular text. You also can unify a design and create contrast with repeating graphic elements. Think about using bullet lists, for example.
Alignment communicates connection between the elements of your design. When designing a business card or brochure (or any other promotional piece), think about the paper as a grid and place your elements on the grid, trying to balance them and create a pleasing design for the eye. Do not be too constricted by the grid; be bold and place some elements outside of it (angle a picture of your shop, for example) to create visual interest. Proximity creates a focus for your business card by creating relationships between elements. After you have designed a card, try the squint test. Hold the piece at about arm’s length.
If all you see is gray, you need to work on proximity. Try to use these elements in all your graphic designs. Also, think about color. Two and four-color jobs are more expensive to print, while a nice, clean black and white design might serve just as well. Because a business card is so small, you want to make sure you do not try to include too much information, and it is very important for it to be eye-catching (otherwise the person you hand your card to is just going to throw it to the back of their desk drawer with all the other business cards in there).
Remember, simplicity is often best. Use an image for the focal point of your card and make sure to include pertinent information such as the store’s name, address, phone numbers, website, and email addresses. Once you get all this information on the card, there is little room for anything else. While many people prefer the simplicity of a 1- by 2-inch card because it fits easily into cardholders, others prefer a folded card because it draws people’s attention and seems a little more sophisticated.
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