Here's some information I want to share with you!
In the coming weeks and months, I'll be sharing some of my favorite resources, site links, and articles to help you make some decisions and increase your knowledge about branding and marketing.
Right now, I want to introduce you to my new offering...
Extreme Business Card Makeovers!
Consider your business card your traveling salesman. It goes out and travels the world, telling everyone it sees about your business.
What kind of impression is your paper salesman making about your business? Does it look polished and professional? Does it represent what you and your company are really about? Or are you giving off a "Herb Tarlek" vibe with garish 1970's plaid pants and wide lapels?
I want to illustrate for you the difference a strong business card can make to that initial impact a potential customer may have - that incredibly vital first impression.
Case Study #1: Sagit Aries Costumes
This card came to me via a recent project I designed. The card was printed with what is called a 'thermographic' process — that 'raised print' often used on quick-print cards. I scanned it directly into my computer at a medium resolution, and because of the resin used to 'raise' the ink, this is the result I got...
I deliberately blurred the phone number, but the rest is broken up because of the printing process used.
OK, poor reproduction ability aside... what IS that thing?
Safe to presume that the name "SagitAries" is a conjunctive creation of "Sagitarius" and "Aries". Kinda cool, if you're into horoscopes. If you're not a star-gazer, then that's irrelevant to you... and the winged crystal ball image doesn't make a lot of sense either.
This is one instance when the focus for the business card may need to say less about the company and its name, and more about what they have to offer their customers. So why not let a picture do the talking?
Without the proper research to learn who is their primary target, for the purpose of this make-over I decided to focus on their dance audience. (As a former dance mom, it's a familiar genre!)
I went to one of my favourite resources, dreamstime.com, and found these images as possible alternatives. Since this is more of an 'experiment', I used their comp photos - the watermark would not be on the final card. (The address and phone numbers are not actual contacts so don't even try...)
Solution #1: Keeping with the red theme associated with these two fire signs of the zodiac, I found an image of dancers on stage. Kept the "grocery list" in this one.
Solution #2: There's lots of little baubles needed in costuming, so to take a bit of focus off dance and make it more generic, I picked a roll of bead garland, preferring to stay with fire-sign red. Started to play with a positioning statement too.
Solution 3: Humans will always desire eye contact, so you can't help but be caught by her gaze. It's a venture away from red as well, so the cool blue color bars framing her eyes recede, making her eyes even more noticeable. New tagline too...
Solution #4: Another cool alternative. This is cropped from a full length shot of a dancer, however I was captured by the movement of the fabric itself. Notice I've dropped the grocery list of products on this one. Much more light and airy.
Solution #5: WAY more up-to-date. This card says modern, edgy, out there and not afraid to push the envelope. A touch of cool red in the name helps it stand out. No grocery list here and with this overall look, the tagline could pretty much read:
"Get your a** on stage."
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I would like you to notice two things. Number One - Although I played with some new typefaces, there is NO NEW LOGO on these cards. I'm not going to invest time in a demonstration like this to design a new logo. Number Two - a logo is not needed to communicate an entirely different message about the company. The images and some up-to-date typography is all that's needed.
Think cards like this have to cost a lot of money? Nope. I did all 5 concepts (with no research outside my image search) in about 2 hours. I can get you 500 full-colour cards like this for about $75. And each image can be purchased at dreamstime.com for under $5. Yep. Five bucks can begin to take your card from "What the...?" to "Wow." |
