talkmagic.co.uk

Hi all -

I was trying to design myself a very basic business card - nothing fancy and nothing professional, just something that has my name on it and doesn't look too horrendous. Does it look alright? Is it stupid? Am I missing a fundamental principle of graphic design? Should it have cards on it?

Thanks!

Kati

P.S. As you see, I like the minimalist look...

P.P.S. It's pixely because it's been scaled down to 700px...

P.P.P.S. And a right-aligned version. I sound like I'm stuttering now, don't I (p-p-p-p-psss!)

EDIT: Cards down until I remove my phone number...

constuctive if i may...
not sure how that green would stand out after printing
would you normally capitalise your name? although some people do go for lower case on cards
doesn't necessarily need cards (or rabbit, wand etc)
mine doesn't
and no, that's not my number

magicmonkey wrote:constuctive if i may...

But of course, the more the better!

magicmonkey wrote:not sure how that green would stand out after printing

Ah...hadn't thought of that. Maybe I'd better make it red. Or will 4 colour (CMYB or whatever it's called) render the green correctly? Maybe light blue instead...

magicmonkey wrote:would you normally capitalise your name? although some people do go for lower case on cards

I like the look of the uncapitalized but I'm not sure if it goes well with a business card for a magician...too modern-ey maybe...

magicmonkey wrote:doesn't necessarily need cards (or rabbit, wand etc)

Phew!

Thanks... appreciated

Kati

it's cmyk. you will get a better idea of how it would print in that mode.
also, if you are sending to a printers it should be either 300 dpi (dots per inch) or much larger so they can alter the resolution

Luckily I read about the 300dpi before starting (it was in 72 before ). The unresized one is at the vistaprint.co.uk specifications for size including bleed etc (not that I need it...).

I like yours! You do a lot of things!

I have two more cards here! Blue and red! I like exclamation marks!

Kati

EDIT: I had a look at the green in a gimp plugin that does a CMYK fudge and it seems to work OK although I can't say for sure.

well, from my experience - black, red and white are the 3 most powerful colours that can be put together (tabloids/coca cola/traffic signs/erm...nazis unfortunately too), it was/is tamed downed to blue, orange, yellow/white so you might wanna play around with those colours too...

I'm not a fan of the obvious or capitalisations...as long as you get the message across of who you are/what you are/how to contact you i think that's pretty much the basics...

as an aside, if you really wanted to go with the cards thing, you could always get your details printed on bike stock (if thats the brand you use) on a blank faced one...plus it might be a nice finish to an effect to if you're going to bars or wherever for work....changing their card to your business card and so on...

...just my thoughts anyway...

Wow i love the idea of a business card on bike stock, anyone know anywhere that does this?

i'd of thought it would be easier to print them yourself, or just get them done at a printers on very thin card stock and ahem 'mount' them yourself...

first off though, ask your local printers...

katrielalex you should add something magical on your business card so at the first view you could see that it's about magic ( star,card,hat,wand,anything). Anyway it look great !

abraxus wrote:i'd of thought it would be easier to print them yourself, or just get them done at a printers on very thin card stock and ahem 'mount' them yourself...

first off though, ask your local printers...

Sorry should have been more specific, i was thinking more of a card that i could use for routines. Mounting them would be ok if i was just handing them out though

You'll want cardmaker then - he's a guy in Germany that prints custom Bike cards. He does large orders too, have a look at his website.

http://www.magicbycardmaker.de/

Kati

Kati, I was watching your business card and I thought : Something is missing...but what? Sudently I found it, when someone see the card for the first time he doesnt think about magic or anything. It's why, I think you should put MAGICIAN in another color/font/underline or something so people mind will react like this:

1.Ho! It's a Magician
2. Then they will see your name ( cause in different color)
3. Contact ( black, last color they will see)

It almost change nothing to the card( it stay professional ) but with this action we can control people mind and thinking

Anyway here's a draft...let me know what you think

Kat,

My advice for what its worth

I believe in the simple approach to business cards and I think you are almost there.

I would reduce in size slightly your contact details and increase in size slightly Magician so it stands out more.

As a personal thing I would use capitals on the first characters of your name and profession.

You can get a free download from Avery which lets you do business cards in Word. I personally use Avery Design Pro 2000 which lets you make a full sheet all the same or different cards on one sheet.

I would play with the colours until they suit you.

Card looks great mate but you might want to remove your number from an open forum?

Thank you both very much

To be honest I was trying to stick to one colour because I wasn't sure about printing but it turns out that all printers offer full CMYK for the front (and sometimes the back) of cards so any colour is OK.

I will work on some more colour combinations - I also had an idea for the back of the card which I will post here soonish.

Thank you all again, very much appreciated.

Kati