The Clean and Green Club

Then came the desktop publishing revolution, which allowed short-run production. Not too far behind were innovations that allowed much greater use of color, creative fonts and design, graphic elements, and even photos—at less cost than the old plain black ones. And finally, colored stocks and standard design templates opened up a world of possibilities for marketing-oriented business cards.

So where does that leave you as you try to figure out what kinds of cards to do, among thousands of choices? Confused, in all likelihood.

Here’s my attempt to shine a flashlight (a nice, green, energy efficient LED flashlight—or torch, as the Brits call it) through the maze.

The first things to figure out are what kind of image you’re striving for, what message you want to be remembered for, and what action you’d like the recipient to take.

For example, if you’re a hard-sell kind of person, you might barely have any contact information, choosing instead to have screaming red and blue colors urging readers to visit your website to get your free consultation.

If you’re more aligned with a softer-sell, information-driven model, you could use quieter font and color choices to offer some kind of freebie report or white paper or comparison chart.

And if you run an activist group focused on passing a specific legislation, you may want to do up just enough cards for a very short-term action push, focused on swamping particular elected officials with mail about that exact issue.

Second, there are several format considerations. Will you print one side of the card, or both? Will you include a picture? If so, is it a head shot of you, an action shot of you, or a picture of your product or service being used? Will you do double-sized cards that fold in the middle? Are there advantages in your particular market to using nonstandard sizes or shapes that outweigh the added difficulty for your recipients in filing the card? Do you use a template or create a design from scratch? Do you need to have visual continuity for different employees’ cards from different departments or even different countries?

Each of these factors (as examples among many) applies differently *in different markets.* Your individual situation will help you determine the right choices.

Let’s look at some specific examples, starting with headshot photos.

When I see a business card with a headshot, I usually assume it belongs to either a real estate agent or a car salesperson. I have never felt the need to include a photo on any of the couple of dozen card designs I’ve used over the years—BUT I’ve heard from other people that they love getting cards with photos, because it helps them associate the card with the person, and with the event where they met. One person even commented that she scans photo business cards into a database, and if she’s looking through her contacts, the picture is a nice visual reminder.

Two-sided and double-size cards obviously give you a lot more room, and are well suited to people with a wide range of products or services. I used to use a lot of those types of cards. But about ten years ago, I shifted toward doing smaller, more tightly targeted cards. I decided, for instance, that the people who would be interested in my publishing consulting services—going on the journey from unpublished writer to well-published author—really didn’t want to read about marketing services for green businesses.