CHA-Winter 2007 Countdown – 5 weeks to go: Preparing Fabulous Business Cards

As the holidays have approached, many of us have wrestled in our personal lives with how to come up with that single photo that sums up our family to include in this year’s holiday greeting cards. In the professional world, something the size of a wallet photo – a business card – also serves as a type of greeting (or introduction) for us. Deciding how to sum ourselves up in that tiny space so our introduction is as effective as possible can take a lot of thought and should not be a last-minute project like my brother’s holiday shopping. That is why this week’s CHA countdown is devoted to preparing business cards.

Some excellent articles have already been written on creating business cards for the scrapbook and other creative industries. Rather than repeat that excellent advice, I will provide links to those resources in their entirety:

DesignerZine’s Guide To Business Cards

Leave a Creative Calling Card

An excellent general article for business card design can be found at:

Business Card Designs

Once you have a design concept in mind (or even if you don’t), there is another decision to make: how you are going to print your cards. Cards can either be printed at home, using pre-perforated sheets of cards from an office supply store along with computer templates, or they can be printed professionally. Either choice can provide beautiful, professional looking results.

An excellent choice of cards for home printing are the Avery Clean Edge Cards. These cards come in sheets of ten and when separated, leave absolutely no perforation on the edges. They come in matte or glossy versions and are available at most major office supply stores in packages of 20 sheets (200 cards). Home printing can be a great option for small quantities of cards, or when multiple cards are needed for various purposes. Custom cards can be created quickly and easily and printed off in small quantities.

If you do choose to use the Avery cards, there are plenty of template tools to assist you in your designing efforts whether you want to start from scratch or customize a pre-designed card:

Avery Blank Card Templates

Avery Customizable Card Templates

HP MS Word Business Card Templates

HP Custom Business Card Designer

If you’d like to print huge quantities, get fancy effects like foil or bleeds, or simply want someone else to worry about the hassle of printing (and maybe get some extra help designing your cards too), then perhaps using an online printing service would be your best option. The services listed below are surprisingly affordable, have pretty quick turn-around times, and some even offer extensive online design tools as well.

Catprint

Got Print

iPrint

Overnight Prints

Whatever method you use to print them, make sure you put some time and effort into creating your business cards. They can be as much about making a first impression as the clothes you are wearing and your handshake, and can help make or break a key person’s impression of you – or help decide if you will be remembered at all.