[kjb]

Hey all,

I'm in the process of designing some business cards for my business and was hoping you might have some simple tips.

I'm a contract sales/marketing rep for several different medical equipment manufacturers, so I need to try to squeeze roughly 7-8 different logos onto a card, either front or back. I'd also like to put my name (duh), phone/fax numbers, and email addy. Are there any basic rules of layout I should try to follow?

I know I should probably go out and pay someone the money to do a pro design for me, but I'm just getting started and don't have the cash around to pay for it just yet.

The tools I have at my disposal are: Photoshop, Pagemaker, InDesign, and Illustrator; my G4 Cube, a Canon N 650U flatbed, and an HP DeskJet 895.

Thanks for any help!!

Kevin

[MikeM32]

Sounds nasty. A professionally done business card should be little more than your own personal info. With all the logo's your talking about I'm not sure how it's going to look.

Mike

[train]

If you are doing the back, you might put all those logos there and keep the front clean with just your info and logo.
Choose one basic font and use it.

[godzookie2k]

You can use much smaller type than you think you can. Sounds vague, I know. But alot of people are under the assumption that you have a small surface area that means you have to use BIG ASS FONTS. you don't. (neither does this give you free reign to use 2pt helvetica compressed either)

Do you *really* have to have all the logos on it? Your business card is a contact information medium, not your resume. Name, address, occupation and business name works fine (business name being optional)
eg:

Nick Godzookie
Playa Hata
Framerate450
Baltimore MD 21356
410 555 5621
buzzgfxatmac.com


not necessarily
Nick Godzookie
Official Playa Hata for
Bad Boy Records
Death Row Records
Sony Music
Jomammaco inc.
Apple Records
*and now*
deesnuts.com
Baltimore MD 21356
410 555 5621
buzzgfxatmac.com


You business card should point people to a way to contact *you* not a way for people to think about hiring you.

Just my opinion.
Nick

[kjb]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
<STRONG>You can use much smaller type than you think you can. Sounds vague, I know. But alot of people are under the assumption that you have a small surface area that means you have to use BIG ASS FONTS. you don't. (neither does this give you free reign to use 2pt helvetica compressed either)

Do you *really* have to have all the logos on it? Your business card is a contact information medium, not your resume. Name, address, occupation and business name works fine (business name being optional)
eg:

Nick Godzookie
Playa Hata
Framerate450
Baltimore MD 21356
410 555 5621
buzzgfxatmac.com


not necessarily
Nick Godzookie
Official Playa Hata for
Bad Boy Records
Death Row Records
Sony Music
Jomammaco inc.
Apple Records
*and now*
deesnuts.com
Baltimore MD 21356
410 555 5621
buzzgfxatmac.com


You business card should point people to a way to contact *you* not a way for people to think about hiring you.

Just my opinion.
Nick</STRONG>

I know what you mean, but, here's how my business works. I contract with several different, some extremely different, manufacturers to sell their equipment to hospitals/Drs. I have several different sets of literature to pass around relating to all of the different equip. Rather that having to fumble through 8 different business cards to find the one that relates to the product that I am talking to the customer about, it would be nice to have one card that shows that product, plus the others- it might get me in the door for a sale that I didn't know they were interested in.

I'm thinking about using the back of the card for the company logos, front for personal info. I'll work on some mockups and post them. Maybe you all can help me critique them.

Kevin

[andi*pandi]

well, rather than posting all the logos, if you don't want the added expense of printing on the back, do like this:

Medical Distributing
John Smith
22 address way
City State tel...etc

A proud distributor of Medco, Datatech, MedVision, Medsight, etc...

in 8pt type. Conveys the information, etc.

BTW, from my experience in medical marketing, won't some of your clients object to having other tech companies advertised by you? or do the techs not compete directly?

[spacefreak]

I was able to "squeeze" in 8 brands (albeit 1 mfr) on this card.

I did it in Illustrator.

http://www.spacefreak.com/portfolio/print/index.htm

[danbrew]

With all due respect, you've come to a forum for graphic artists and asked for advice and then proceeded to say you're not going to follow any of the advice..!

In my humble opinion, it's a bad idea to put multiple logos (and probably competitive) on the business card. The firms involved probably have rules against that sort of thing - and may not care to have you use their logo at all.

I'd suggest you go with a card with what makes your business unique and contains simple contact information for you.

fwiw

[godzookie2k]

Thats a big agreed there Danbrew. What I don't get is that your *business* is sales/marketing of products to med co./drs. You don't actually represent said companies, you sell a variety of products that happen to be made by a variety of manufacturers. Your *business* is sales. It'd be like Target hanging the black and decker, GE, Panasonic, and Jello logos on the front of their store just because they sell products by those companies. Perhaps just a 'medical products solution specialists' type thing is needed on your card? maybe even a 'representing a gamut of solution solving firms' or something? (I'm a sucky copy writer, ) But you get my point. And yes, to reiterate, you *will* need to get permission from said companies about using their logo, and esp in the context that you want to use it 9side by side w/ competitors) Companies aren't very friendly with people using their logos all willy nilly. When you send/give someone your card you can say "yeah, we have products from blank Co., yadda inc., etc etc. That should suffice, because when they whip out your business card later they'll remember the conversation. (if you did a good job at selling yourself)


Juuuuusssttt a thought.
Nick

[Simon X]

Whilst I'm no expert in this particular field I have done my far share of design work and worked in a large design company and seen how the graphic designers worked. What the others are saying is correct in respect to placing to much on your card. Your card is a point of reference to *you* and not the products you sell. One possible solution is to split the info. Instead of just a card design a mini-brochure that holds your card, a single page should do. The kind with small slots that can hold the card as well as contain the kind of info you want to display. This has the advantage of allowing you to actually say something instead of just a collection of logos.
It can be quite small and not much bigger than the card it holds. Even two fold if you want.

Just a thought.

I've been in the process of designing all my stationary, which in my line of work is not that important as I am what I sell. And no I'm unluckilly not a male gigolo. But the stuff I used to do in my last job has rubbed off on me and I'm re-branding myself.

You might want to check out this book.
Design it Yourself Logos Letterheads and Business Cards

[hytek]

I run a lawn service and I do all my own design work when it comes to ads, logo's, business cards, promotional items, ect. I can understand that you might want to put the logo's of all the manufacturers you sell for on your business card, but with that many, it's going to clutter the design up. If manufacture A sells basically the samething as Manufacture B, what's the sense in having both on the card. Choose three manufacturers that make different products and work them into the front design of the card. Your customers are smarter than you give them credit, they'll see those logos and instantly know what type of salesman you are and what types of products you sell. They'll get the point.

Remember, if you try to target everyone in general, you're likely to reach no one in particular.

[MikeM32]

I have to agree with what Simon X said, you're better off keeping the Business Card itself as simple as possible. Thios doesn't mean you can't add a little something "extra", but you don't want to clutter it up with all kinds of things that will distract the customer/potential customer from the basics of who you are, where you can be reached and what you do.

If you feel the need to also supply them with all this additional info, put it into a flier of some kind. You could make-up a simple bi or tri fold from a basic 8 1/2 x 11 page. Then you can even add a 4 corner cut slots for adding a business card to the flier. The flier will further expand on what it is you can provide your clients/potential clients with. Once they've read through it they see the business card, and have it to keep handy.

The placement of the card is important within the flier. You want to put it at the very end of the information. Basically you're "forcing" the reader to actually read your flier before they get your business card, this way they're fully informed of what it is you do. This is a little trick I've picked-up from working with direct mail campaigns (credit card applications and so forth). Always put the "cookie" at the end (in a manner of speaking).

Mike

[godzookie2k]

Originally posted by MikeM32:
<STRONG>This is a little trick I've picked-up from working with direct mail campaigns (credit card applications and so forth).</STRONG>

Youuuuuu bastard.....YOU are the reason for my junkmail!!!!! Diiieeee!
::shoots off double super hyper flash kick fireball:::




Nick
&lt;/supermegaofftopic&gt;