Ways to Make Your Business Card Stand Out

Few tools are as important to your networking abilities as the humble business card. The paper business card has survived and flourished in a fast-changing, high-tech business world. It’s still the perfect way to swap information with contacts, including peers, potential employers, potential clients, and everyone else that you might see fit to network with. But with so many people swapping business cards all of the time, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. How can you ensure that the number on your business card turns into a contact on somebody’s iPhone? How can you get someone to visit that website you’ve included on your card?

You’ll need everything to go your way to get maximum results from your business cards. That means great networking skills, the ability to provide value to the people you meet, and one little edge that too few professionals think about: the quality of your business card itself. A memorable and unique business card can help you stand out from the crowd, giving you an advantage that, with the right networking and career skills, can take you a long way. You don’t have to go too out-of-the-box, but here are four things to consider (along with basic design principles, of course) when designing your next business card.

Change colors and go bold

If you work in old-school, suit-and-tie business spaces, your color options might be limited to different types of whites, off-whites, and eggshells. But by pushing the boundaries, you can make sure your business card stands out from the bland crowd. And in industries and business spaces where innovation is the norm, business cards can really get exciting. Find the sweet spot — a charming primary color might toe the line better than a garish neon — but don’t be afraid to take some risks with your business card’s background and font colors. It might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s something that anybody will remember.

Corners and shapes

Business cards are, traditionally speaking, little rectangles, but they don’t have to be that way. Many business card printing companies will allow you to try out different shapes. You can get wild with circles and hexagons, or — if you want to be a bit kinder to your contact’s wallet — make your business card a square. You can even stick with the old-school rectangle style while still making things interesting by rounding the corners. When your business card feels a little different in someone’s hand, that person is likely to remember that card — and remember you, too!

Using space on your card

Business cards aren’t usually very big, but they do offer plenty of space to make a mark. Using space in creative ways can get your card noticed, too. Play around with text justification: there’s no reason that your information needs to be centered on the card. You can push text to the right or left, use both the front and back of the business card, and even rotate things so that the card is read in portrait orientation rather than landscape orientation.

Be creative, and don’t worry about leaving open space! Negative space can be a powerful tool in design, experts agree, and making sharp use of empty space on your business card is one way to get a hip design without having to pay someone for a fancy logo.

The best part? All of this should be easy to set up yourself with online business card printing tools, say experts at Catdi, who specialize in creating business cards in Houston, Texas.

Connecting your professional presences

You show your face to the professional world in a variety of ways. You have your business cards, of course, but you probably also have a LinkedIn profile, a professional website (a must-have in this day in age), and other public professional presences. To be as effective as possible, these different sides to your professional presence should be connected!

It’s 2018, so don’t be afraid to put your web URL and (professional) social media accounts on your business card. Give your contacts every chance to connect you with on a professional level, and odds are, they ultimately will.


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