Back to freelance journalism after 18 months of running my own magazine business, which is going through ambigious times, shall I say. Perhaps it’s time for a new businesscard. Here are some tips from something I pulled together for AFR Boss a while ago.
CARD SHARP
If you think your business card is just about passing on your telephone number, think again. It can make or break your image.
- Paper quality. Too thin looks cheap; too thick, as if it came out of a cereal packet. Depending on paper stock, 250GSM to 300GSM is ideal.
- Designers often want to keep type small to let the logo be the hero.Says design director Quentin Brown: “Size and colour of type is always a source of complaint, especially among those with poor eyesight.”
- Get the numbers right. fitch:Worldwide CEO Paul Stead says: “I’ve seen cards where people have scribbled ‘my telephone’s wrong on this’. You’ve got to keep it up to date.”
- Don’t be fooled by embossing. According to Gary Broadbent, a creative director, “If you are spending money with an organisation, you don’t want it to feel like they are spending all their money on flashy cards.”
- Use quirky cards only for product launches and special events. “Does it fit in my wallet or card holder?” asks Quentin Brown. “That’s where all cards end up so it needs to be practical.”
Selling Yourself
THE BUSINESS card may have started life as an easy way to pass on your contact details, but these days the 90mm x 50mm object carries a much larger meaning. There’s what it says about your corporate identity. And there’s the subliminal message about whether you are professional enough to get your card printed in an appropriate style.
Then there’s the fact that a business card gives you a “tactile leave behind” from all those meetings.
But getting the look and feel right is crucial, and today there are plenty of brand and design consultants out there who reckon they can make it happen for you.
A card has only a few seconds to make an impact before it is put down and possibly filed away for good. Quentin Brown, design director at Melbourne branding agency Cornwell, says it needs to have high impact within seconds. And he says delivery is important: “It’s the way you hand over a card; it’s all part of the delivery, whether you just put them on the table or flick them over to people.”
The card can be a much-neglected object – scattered in drawers, left in jacket pockets, stuffed into wallets – but Gary Broadbent, creative director of design agency Kirby+Nolan, says it deserves the respect it gets in the East.
“If you look at the way business cards are handed over in Singapore and the East, it’s between the thumbs and forefinger in a reverential way,” he says. “They study the card for a minute or so and take in all the details.”
Paul Stead, the CEO of design company fitch:Worldwide, says: “I think it is a very important, very small piece of paper that has an enormous consequence for your business. It’s a call to action for the client or the prospect to go onto the web and find out more.”
Stead also believes the handover is important: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression. A business card is part of a memory chain in a relationship.”
When people first meet it is unlikely they will immediately do business together, according to Stead. But if one person is sufficiently engaging and thoughtful, their card may be retrieved in the future.
When Stead started a business mid-recession in 1988, he realised his card needed to be memorable. “We have always done business cards that are different, that are folded and that have said something about the business,” he says. He believes companies can be many times more inventive with what they do with their cards. His agency evolved the business card into a sales device – a mini brochure card, in the
form of a slim staple-bound volume featuring 16 pages of information on fitch:Worldwide and its clients, plus two cover pages, all within the regulation size.
The best card Stead ever saw, he says, was from a company that makes very thin micro-etched stainless steel masks for printing – and that was exactly what the card was made from. “That for me is perfect because … you’ve also got their business encapsulated in the business card. It was just a very, very simple, beautiful piece of stainless steel. It just said so much about the company,” he says.
While fitch:Worldwide is in a creative business and has to express what it does creatively, a bank or an accounting firm has different priorities.
But Stead says there is no reason a bank couldn’t treat a business card creatively. A banker’s card could be styled as a credit card, designed to deliver a personal service, such as allowing prestige customers to side-step computer-generated voices and speak to known individuals.
The credit card idea has also been used by brand consultancy Attik’s David Taylor. His mobile number was embossed on the front and he signed his name on the white strip on the back. Taylor tried mini brochures (back in 1994) and used metal cards as well – which had the disadvantage of not being able to be stapled to forms. But now Attik, known for its complex, multilayered images and music videos, is indulging in post 9/11 austerity and uses a plain card. According to Taylor, “We’ve gone clean. People are looking for some simplicity and structure in their lives.”
Broadbent suggests practicality – stick with 90mm x 50mm and see what can be done within the space. “If you are with a group of colleagues and you all have different cards, what does that suggest to the people you are selling to? In a corporate market where you are interpreting people’s brands and making intellectual judgements, you don’t want a card that is wacky, zany and quirky. But the key is that once all the cards are on the meeting table, yours should stand out,” he says.
With wireless communications, people can swap details with their personal organisers and mobile phones. These are simple exchanges of basic data with no branding. Electronic cards don’t stand out, although with the latest generation of mobile phones being able to send photos the days of the branded electronic business card are close. Even so, it’s unlikely we will give up on the cards you can swap at corporate lunches or at the pub.