Designing a Business Card

The start of the new year is a good time to design a new business card. I always have cards handy; in my purse, in my jacket pockets and in the glove box of the car. It is an inexpensive and very effective marketing devise and you never know when you will have the opportunity to hand out your card. I have been known to hand them to someone sitting next to me on a plane. Over the years I have had many different business cards. They have always been very colourful, printed on both sides and on a nice thick card stock.

The first group are some cards from my Toronto graphic design days. I liked having my photo on the card, which I felt gave it a personal touch. In those days I went to many 'business after hours' events for networking. There were usually door-prizes and 8 times out of 10 times, my card would be pulled out of the fish bowl. The luck of the draw, possibly, but more then likely because my card was made of a heavier card stock.

Once I moved to Saskatchewan I started putting my own artwork on my business cards, as you can see by this next bunch. I liked to take advantage of using colour.

This is my latest card. As I am wearing two different hats, the front of the card represents Island Arts Magazine and the back of the card represents Young at Art and my artwork. I like this format very much. For my new card I think I will design something very similar, just using new images.

My advise when designing your business card is:

• Keep the design clean.
• Don't put too much text on the card.
• Don't use too many different font types. Even though a script font may look lovely, it's often hard to read.
• When using text on a dark background, the text should be bold, otherwise the background ink will bleed into the text, making it hard to read.
• Keep it simple.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Parade Banners a Success

There's nothing like a rush design job to get the heart pumping!

Last week I was asked to design four banners for the Chamber of Commerce in Fort Qu'Appelle Sask. for their July 1st parade - of this year!!! With only a few days notice, I put everything else aside and got to work.

They wanted the banners for their float vehicle so they had to be quite large. The two side panels needed to be 3 feet x 12 feet, and the two for the front and back were 3 feet x 7 feet. The problem with working in such a large format is that your file sizes gets to be quite huge. For such a project I set the resolution high and work with the files at 50%, and then have them printed out at 200%. Doing a large size format is not new to me, as I have done many highway billboards and those suckers are 10 feet by 40 feet.

By Monday night I emailed the proofs to the client, who quickly approved them Tuesday morning. I uploaded the files via FTP to my printers, "Western Litho", in Regina. By Tues. noon, two of the four banners had already been printed. Now that is great service!!

The client picked them up Friday morning. Here they are on July 1st just in time for the parade. Everybody's happy!

Maybe next year I can get a little bit more notice!?


Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Just call me the Juggler!

Instead of 'graphic designer' I should be called 'the juggler'. Today alone I am designing an ad for Sask. Tourism, trying to help in securing a billboard location for a design on Hwy. # 1 and redesigning a menu for a friend of mine. This morning I gave the final approval for the Travel Guide. (not to mention I am suppose to get my tax stuff together for a scheduled meeting tomorrow.)

One step at a time and everything gets done. Just like the tortoise.

Now what to do about the taxes? Oh Jeff!!!

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan