This is a great post also. One of those things that we relegate to the mundane things – taken for granted, yet which are so important.

I had a question for you and your readers:

Is using ‘business cards’ still a good idea for personal networking? – where the cards are purely meant for family and friends with whom we want to share our home contact details – home phone, personal email, fax, address etc.
Or would it be seen as a “who do they think they are!! with all this cards nonsense. Show-offs!”

Thanks for a great blog.

Oh, THAT David Berkowitz.

Also, on business card design, make sure to find a balance between attractive and functional. My cards look GREAT (and I always get comments of such when I hand them out), but the fonts for my address (which is now out-dated, I’ll get to that in a minute) and phone numbers are rather small and hard to read. When I tested my card in one of those business card scanners, it couldn’t pick up any of the information. The address was sideways and my name was on one side and the company name was on the other, etc. I had a graphic designer friend make it and I was so impressed with the design that I didn’t stop to think about the usability.

Also, my cards are full-color glossy both sides. Again, looks GREAT, but if I want to write a note on my cards, I MUST use a sharpie. If I forget my sharpie (which is less and less these days, but still happens), then I can’t write on the back in the area that I left room for such notes. Worse yet, if the person I gave the card to wants to write a note after I have left and they don’t have a sharpie, they are unable to (ballpoint pen works slightly, but liquid inks don’t work at all).

Now, I also rebranded my company and changed my name a few months ago. I also moved and my address changed even before that. I haven’t gotten a chance to print new cards up and it is simply unprofessional to hand out cards with information crossed out, not to mention the effort I have to make each time I grab a stack of cards from the box. And to keep telling people, “it’s my old company name, but the information still gets to me” is tacky as well. Just print new cards up and throw away any unused cards.

I would also suggest looking around at online print shops. A lot of them have good digital print deals these days. I bought mine from a place in Florida called urbanprinting.com and I got 2500 full color cards for $65 (plus $20 shipping). If you want to get the back side non-glossy (to avoid my mistakes), that’s an up-charge and they have other options as well. There are also other options online, such as Vista Print. Just search and find a good deal.

So, allow my comment to mostly serve as what NOT to do with business cards. It’s just like in web design, you need to balance design with function. Too much design can be a bad thing.

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Chris Tackett