A business card is a small, printed paper card, usually the size of a credit card (85 x 55 mm), that contains your business information such as name, contact details and brand logo.
Your business card design is an essential part of your branding and should act as a visual extension of your brand design.
Business cards are an indispensable part of business life.
They are, in a sense, the face of a company and ensure that potential contacts always have all the necessary information about the business partner readily available.
Your business card represents your company's brand.
It not only conveys important personal contact information such as name, title, email, website, address and telephone number, but is often also the first glimpse into the overall picture of the company.
The company logo is prominently displayed as part of the brand identity.
The fonts, colors, textures and paper types used also convey a message about the type of industry represented.
Special printing techniques such as embossing, foil stamping, thermography or lamination can be used.
The business card reflects the personality of the company and conveys the first impression.
Since business cards are the face of your company, it makes sense to create them in the same design as your business stationery, the official one. White WaveDesign logo and the company website, to strengthen the company's corporate identity in the form of visual communication and to build brand awareness.
This allows for free rein to the creativity of the graphic design.
Provided that all necessary information is included on the cards, there is free choice regarding shape and color.
Business cards are not only a medium for conveying personal contact information, but also serve as advertising media for companies.
This means that the materials differ and can consist not only of the usual 150-300g/m2 paper, but also of plastic, stainless steel or rubber.
In Germany, the rectangular 85 cm x 55 cm business card format has become the most common.
This format is approximately the same size as the ISO-standardized formats for bank and credit cards and is therefore very practical, as it fits easily into wallets and business card cases.
Nevertheless, there is still room for artistic freedom and deviations when creating business cards.
How strictly established standards are adhered to remains largely up to the company or industry conventions.
There are also no fixed guidelines regarding the orientation between portrait and landscape formats.
Nevertheless, certain norms have developed here over time that one can follow.
Landscape format is more common today than portrait format.
Although this is a matter of style, you should think carefully about whether to choose the portrait format for your business cards.
This is because in many business card files or business card cases, the pockets are oriented in landscape format and in the size of bank and credit cards.
For more practical use in everyday business, landscape format is therefore preferable, whereas portrait format, due to its less frequent use, can lead to more attention and better recall.
A special format of business cards is the 4-page folded card.
These usually have the same format as normal business cards in bank card format when folded.
However, they offer twice the surface area for information.
Although these cards are less practical due to their folding function, they offer, similar to portrait-format cards, the possibility of being remembered better by the recipient due to their rarity.
When arranging the information, in addition to clarity, completeness and up-to-dateness of the data, rules of graphic design also apply, such as the golden ratio.
Paying attention to this leads people to perceive a harmonious and coherent design.
When creating business cards, you should also make sure that all relevant data is on the front of the card.
This serves to improve usability and provide a quicker overview for the reader.
A business card should include the first and last name.
The company logo and your job title are also important elements that allow contacts to later know who you are and where you are from.
Providing a telephone number is also advantageous, as are the email address and the domain of the company website.
The company's postal address, however, is optional and not absolutely necessary.
Furthermore, it should be noted that printing information on the back of business cards is impractical if you use business card cases and take the card out of your pockets before using it.
Therefore, the back of a business card often remains blank.
In some cases, however, the identical data and design of the front are also printed on the back, so the card cannot be used for reading.
However, this often leads to confusion, as this form of labeling is unusual.
Instead, the blank space on the back can be used to write useful or additional personal information when exchanging cards.
In other cases, the space is used for less important information, such as portrait photos, QR codes or used a map.
In addition to websites, MIC The Group previously offered holistic banding concepts for its customers, but this is no longer the case today.
However, we have many partners who could do this for you.
Business cards are used to exchange data about people and are mostly used in the business sector to make and keep contacts.
Business cards are subject to certain rules regarding their form and the information they contain.
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