Framerguy

I have had some experience with designing business cards and layouts and you have some good ideas brought out by the other posters on this idea. My take on a business card is it should give your prospective customer enough important information so that they know what your business does and they can contactyou without any further searching.

Name of the business is most important and should stand out on the card. Business phone # and address (if in a storefront) should also be on the card. Email address is OK if you feel that it is an important enough means of contact that you will faithfully check it each and every day no matter how busy you get but one email address is more than sufficient as is one phone contact line. If you have a website that is professional looking and is updated regularly, that is another good contact source for customers. The internet is steadily becoming a primary source for business information for the consumer. But think to yourself where you would look for that type of business before you put money into utilizing that form of advertising. Do you go to the internet to find a good food caterer? Do you use Google to find a reputable body shop to repair your wrecked vehicle? Use the advertising that you use to find different types of businesses and ask your friends where they look to find a good restaurant or caterer. (From all the past comments and threads, I would recommend one of the places be right here on the PFF for starters!!)

Now, the logo, many will say that you don't need a logo, many will want a logo. Whatever the choice, make it stand out and be consistent. The logo you have chosen has the obvious look of clip art and that isn't what attracts customers nowadays. With all the imaging programs available to most people today and with the graphics companies that are willing to turn your visual idea into a professional looking logo that you can stick with forever and use as a "brand" for your business, I would spend the extra money and have one professionally designed for you. It will pay back more in interest from your customers than you can ever imagine. And the branding of your business is quite important to your future even though you may not realize it now.

What do the golden arches remind you of, or the patriotic colors of the logos "Esso" or "SOHIO" or "Exxon" bring to mind?? The colonel's portrait on a red and white background?? Branding is very important and is one of the more advanced methods to set your business apart from all the others but it is well worth considering as it is very inexpensive to use once it is designed properly andused consistentlyand people will know you by the image after they have been "educated" to what your company is represented by. And it doesn't necessarily need to be an image of something, I know right off what the large black block letters "IBM" stand for or "AT&T" or the royal blue and gold of "NAPA".

So, along with the "KISS" concept, you need to include the most important things that you want to convey to your prospective customer on that little card and do it precisely and with as few words as possible without becoming redundant. For example, your separate names and phone #'s, quite apparently the two consecutive #'s that Ma Bell assigned to your new business. [(Ma Bell, hmmmm, no doubt who THAT is!!) Another good example of branding, using a nickname or slogan consistently like "Xerox" or "Kleenix"!] I would put both names and one phone # on the card or else have separate cards printed out for each of you with your own names on each version of them.

Good luck with your venture and I sure hope that some of these little tips will help you develop a top notch business card design. :hungry

Edit: Tuna man has a good idea too, get a dedicated email address from your carrier, it doesn't cost a penny and further gets your business name out there for prospective customers to see. And separate business cards are always a good idea as I stated before. Use your common sense to decide what YOU would do in each situation when looking for a business and then cater to that form of location of information to do your own "fishing" for new customers.