Help me choose a calling card design

[P. Bateman]

Originally Posted by Huntsman

The emblem is something that... is emblematic of me.

Would you share what emblem you chose? Obviously it's personal and suited to you and you only but I'm looking for inspiration. Thanks.

 

[Brian SD]

#1 and the last one are the best.

 

[TheFoo]

I don't like the barcode design or the black top. If I ever had a personal card made for myself, I think I'd leave the whole thing plain, except with my name in the center.

 

[tiecollector]

^^ tru nuff.

Just put a black box in the center of the card with your name / phone

 

[P. Bateman]

I went to the printers today to explore some other options and I'm now looking at a heavyweight ecruwhite card slightly larger than a standard 2x3.5" with letterpress lettering and a blind embossed traditional monogram in the middle. It's nice but a little pricey at $2/ea for 200 cards.

 

[JetBlast]

Originally Posted by P. Bateman

I went to the printers today to explore some other options and I'm now looking at a heavyweight ecruwhite card slightly larger than a standard 2x3.5" with letterpress lettering and a blind embossed traditional monogram in the middle. It's nice but a little pricey at $2/ea for 200 cards.

At that cost I'd just carry around some post-it notes and a pen.

 

[Huntsman]

Originally Posted by P. Bateman

Would you share what emblem you chose? Obviously it's personal and suited to you and you only but I'm looking for inspiration. Thanks.
It's both too esoteric and too much of a niche item to be of any help in the inspiration department, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by P. Bateman

I went to the printers today to explore some other options and I'm now looking at a heavyweight ecruwhite card slightly larger than a standard 2x3.5" with letterpress lettering and a blind embossed traditional monogram in the middle. It's nice but a little pricey at $2/ea for 200 cards.
I thought about non-standard size as well, but that might make it annoying for other people who don't have the facility to handle the size. My first order (including the custom emboss die) ran me $300/100, but its cheaper now. ~ H

 

[crazyquik]

Originally Posted by mafoofan

I don't like the barcode design or the black top. If I ever had a personal card made for myself, I think I'd leave the whole thing plain, except with my name in the center.

That is what mine look like

 

[A Y]

Looking at your card, a few things struck me:

1. The black background and stripes don't serve any purpose, and the card looks like it's trying too hard. Every element in the card should have some intended purpose, otherwise get rid of it. Now if the barcode were real and decoded to your name or some relevant info, that might be cool depending on a bunch of other things. The empty space also looks pretty static.

2. The font clashes with the modern-y feel of the rest of the card (lots of empty space, dots for the number separators, minimalist abbreviations, eg. "m:"). I would have used a sans serif font of some sort if that's the look you're going after.

In general, don't try to look novel for novelty's sake. The novelty of the card should come from the structure of its functionality --- be creative in trying to solve a real problem in the card's design rather than just trying to make the card look different. For example, you may feel that a business card is pretty small, so you'd like your name to stand out as much as possible in the space you have. You can now work within the structure of that problem to come up with designs that work. I'm not saying that's a real problem that needs to be solved, but rather it's an example of a design problem.

The traditional designs work really well, too, especially since you have so few elements, and your font would look fine in a traditional design.

--Andre

 

[nakedundermyclothes]

first one, plz.

 

[P. Bateman]

Thanks Andre. Good feedback. I did a redesign and have settled on this:

PS, Anyone know how to save a Photoshop file as a high resolution JPG or convert it to Adobe Illustrator? The printers need at least 600 dpi in the JPG format and I don't know how to save it as such.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by P. Bateman

Thanks Andre. Good feedback.

I did a redesign and have settled on this:

PS, Anyone know how to save a Photoshop file as a high resolution JPG or convert it to Adobe Illustrator? The printers need at least 600 dpi in the JPG format and I don't know how to save it as such.

That looks much better. 600 dpi is 600 dots per inch. Figure out how big in inches your card will be, and multiply those dimensions by 600 to get the resolution in pixels you should save in. For example, the standard business card size is 2x3.5 inches, so you'd save with a resolution of 1200x2100. Be sure to use the highest quality settings so you minimize the JPEG artifacts.

--Andre

 

[hadecker]

A is best.