Business card tips from a client's point of view

Last Christmas, I bought my dad a mini desktop filing cabinet, so he had a better way to organise the dozens of business cards he had amassed over the years. When I was filing them away for him as an extra favour, I had a good look at the design and content of these cards representing many different kinds of local, regional and national businesses, and in doing so, I was able to gather ideas on what makes a bad business card and why. Here are some dos and don’ts when it comes to designing your business card, whether you're in the language services industry or not:

Keep it brief

As the potential punter, I want to be able to see key information at a glance: who you are, what you do and how I contact you. I don’t want to read an essay. One business card I found had the following format: “Hi my name’s Joe Bloggs. If you fancy a chat, give me a call at the studio on 01234 567890. Why not drop me an email on j.bloggs@bloggbusiness.com.” This usually doesn’t work for audiences in most industries, unfortunately. 

Don't crowd your card either. If clients want to read about your academic history, see a long list of qualifications or inquire into your extensive experience, they will visit your website, which you have provided on the card. Your business card is only a basis for initial contact.

Ramón Olivares' card is simple, yet powerful, containing the most useful information that a client would need.
Plenty of white space and two contrasting colours mean that I can take in his details in under three seconds.

Keep it readable

Think carefully when it comes to choosing your colour scheme, particularly the background and font colours. With a black background, make sure your font colour is bold and stands out, and isn't a dark green or blue like some examples I came across. I don’t want to have to strain my eyes just to read your name.

The bright and bold text on Alison Hughes' card stands out brilliantly on a dark background.
There's nothing wrong with a white background, but Alison has clearly opted for striking colours,
so that the card does not come across as bland or underwhelming.

Keep it relevant

As a UK customer, I don’t really care about your offices in China, Australia, Canada or Brazil, let alone require the contact details for them. If you have several sites or locations, give out cards with your Manchester office to UK customers and ones with your Shanghai office to Chinese customers. Five sets of details make your card appear too busy and crowded, and is simply redundant. So know your audience.

Keep it consistent

All of your bullet points should either start with a capital or they shouldn't. Not a mix. Email addresses and websites are all lower case. Not a mix. Why would your customers want to spend money with a business that has a poor grasp of orthography and style? Also, keep the font consistent. A mix of more than two is not professional, particularly ones that contrast with each other enormously such as Times and Comic Sans.

Lucy Morin uses two professional fonts for Trad'en Seine's business cards.
The first is a more creative one to reflect the creativity of her business.
When it comes to the contact details, she uses a slightly more 'standard' font.
These work incredibly well together.

Pay for quality

VistaPrint is fine for casual, non-professional affairs, but if you want to be taken seriously as a business(person), you need to invest in quality cards. Free or ridiculously cheap business cards are not only tacky, but they wear far more quickly. If you present your VistaPrint business card to me, that tells me that you do not respect yourself or your profession, and you are unwilling to invest in yourself or your business to be successful.

Marta Stelmaszak is a professional who has paid for a professional-looking business card and
certainly hasn't printed it out from her own computer! She makes use of both sides 
of the card: one to get her brand image across instantly, and another to 
neatly set out essential contact information and key facts about what her business offers.

Eva Hussain has also made the most of both sides of her business card. It is better than simply having a blank side with "Get your free business cards from...". Notice how she and Marta have two principal company colours (brown and white, and blue and white), the usage of which is inverted on either side of the card. 

Say what you do

We live in an age of abstract business names, so make sure you include a tagline or bullet points that say what your business actually does and what services or products it offers. Otherwise, how else am I going to know what Invictiaranius or Orbitanium does?

Zoey Cooper's business has a captivating brand image with a captivating name.
But she has crucially provided a company tagline to describe what her business does and
also uses just a few words to say what her specialism is.

Set your phone number out correctly

For landlines, separate the dialling code from the main number; this keeps it readable, e.g. 01234 456789, not 01234567890. You can also split the main body of the number up if it makes it more memorable, e.g. 01234 55 66 77 or 01234 555 666. This is probably why you remember your local taxi firm’s number.

Get the telephone code right too; this makes it more professional. Although most UK towns and cities have five digit codes such as 01XXX, major cities have three (02X) or four digit codes (011X or 01X1), but some people still write such codes incorrectly. For example, London and Cardiff’s codes are 020 and 029 respectively, not 0207 or 02920. These misconceptions are incredibly widespread across all cities affected. Although this may seem a rather pedantic point on a personal level, if a professional business can’t get a telephone code right, what other extremely fundamental aspects can it not grasp?

Laminate the cards

This is often a good idea. Your business card will last longer, people will be more likely to retain it and lamination will stop it from being used as scrap paper. Do make sure that the lamination is not too thick or wide.

Be creative, but not too much
Think very carefully about having a non-standard size card. The standard format is designed to fit neatly into a wallet, purse or business card holder. Anything that doesn't is therefore prone to getting lost and busy clients will not thank you. Unless you're into graphic design, there really is no need to divert from the standard size and you can stand out from the crowd in other ways.

Thanks to all professional individuals and companies who kindly volunteered to have their business card displayed:

• Ramón Olivares - EN/FR>ES/GL Translator - rolivares.net - @rolivares_net
• Alison Hughes - FR>EN Creative Translator - alisonhughes-translations.co.uk - @AHcreattrans
• Lucy Morin (Trad'en Seine) - EN<->FR Translator - trad-en-seine.fr - @Tradenseine
• Marta Stelmaszak (WantWords) - EN<->PL Translator - wantwords.co.uk - @mstelmaszak
• Eva Hussain (Polaron Language Services) - Corporate translations - polaron.com.au - @Eva_Polaron
• Zoey Cooper (Polkadot Global) - International Marketing and Localisation Specialist  - polkadotglobal.com - @zcoopr