DD Blog

Business Card Mojo

by Sebastien de Castell

Following up on Brett’s post about the opportunity to get some free business cards from vistaprint.ca, I thought I’d share a couple of thoughts on the subject of business cards based on my own experiences through the years.

You’ll never use 250 so don’t buy 500.

It’s almost funny how many times I’ve gone out to buy business cards and thought, “wow, getting 500 cards is only 25% more expensive than buying 250.” Speaking as someone who has had to throw out boxes of old business cards at least a dozen times in my career, don’t fall for it. As young designers, how likely is it you’re going to keep your visual identity for even a year? My experience is that it’s rare - you’ll probably want to change it within 6 months. How likely is it that your phone number will even stay the same? Or your e-mail address? (note: don’t use hotmail, yahoo, or other generic e-mail addresses for your business cards - it always looks a little cheap.) So the advice is, buy the lowest number of cards possible

Business cards for Digital Design students?

No one ever thinks they need a business card while being a student.  After all, we generally think of business cards as things we use to get jobs or contracts. But in actual fact, when you apply for a job you’ll already be sending them your portfolio, resume, and cover letter. Your contact info will be all over the place. But what about the people you meet at design events? Or when you’re introduced to an actor or cinematographer or sound designer you might want to collaborate with later? Or someone who might have freelance work down the road? Business cards are for maintaining a connection that would otherwise fade from memory. Usually I forget people at conferences about half an hour after I meet them. A business card that leaves an impression helps me remember them and feel like it’s worth my while to maintain some contact.

So what does that mean for me?

Here’s some basic suggestions  for Digital Design students. I hope faculty, students, and alumni will give their own thoughts on this and disagreement is always agreeable:

Term 1 and 2: You’re going to be meeting a lot of people and it’s hard to tell who’s going to play a role in your education at VFS or your future career. But at this stage you also don’t know what your focus is going to be so you don’t want to spend a ton of time on this. My advice is, design a fairly simple, elegant one-sided business card that has some design element (picture, symbol,…etc) that connects it to you and who you are. Show it to your design instructor (Robin or Jen are both great for this but any of us can give you feedback.) Then find a free deal like the vistaprint one or something similar and get a bunch printed. Don’t give yourself a goofy title like “design genius” - people get turned off by that. Don’t be afraid to put “Design Student” as a title - professionals often admire people who aren’t afraid to say who they actually are. Don’t give out your cards to your DD instructors or other DD students but do give them out to alumni and soon-to-be alumni.

Term 3, 4, 5: You’re probably starting to get focused on some specific area of design. It might be motion, interactive, communication, or some other sub-discipline. If your earlier cards still work for you then great - don’t worry about doing something else. If you’re feeling like those cards don’t represent you, then take advantage of what you learn in Print Design in term 4 and print your own. You don’t need a lot. Seriously. At any one time I really only need to have about fifteen business cards. This is an okay time to take a few design risks and see how they turn out.

Term 6: Now your focus is either on getting a job or going freelance. Either way your probably going to need to design new cards. You’ll get a lot of help in Employment Prep (with Keiron) and Portfolio Development (with Miles) on designing your identity and setting your career direction. There’s a lot more thought that has to go into these cards because they have to represent your professional identity. I won’t go into detail here because you’ll get formal help with this at the right time. But I will say this: paper matters. When it’s your professional identity and you’re putting yourself out in the marketplace printing on cheap card stock or free card products. Focus on quality, not quantity. You’re only likely to use at most 30-40 of these cards before you end up in a position and they risk becoming obsolete. You’ll use probably a quarter of these on people who don’t need them (like parents, friends…etc.) However sometimes this is still a good idea because those people give them out to other people they meet who might be in your field.

There are tons of examples of great business cards out there, but here are some innovative ones that might give you some ideas:18 Business Card Designs 

Posted in Branding, Experience, Faculty Work, Inspiration |