Watch Out For These Business Card Mistakes
In this age of email, personal Web pages and Blackberrys,
you’d think business cards don’t have any place in this era. But
business cards are still considered the essence of a professional.
Think about it: what kind of professional doesn’t have a business card?
So, if you are in the market for some business cards of your own,
watch out for the following mistakes people make when creating business
cards and avoid them at all costs:
Using big, ugly font. Okay, so ugly is in the eye of the beholder,
but try to stick with fonts that are popular and easy to read, like
Times, Arial or Garamond
Your name and contact info should only be big enough to read and not
much bigger. If you use big font that takes up most of your card,
you’ll look unprofessional.
Not using your logo. Your logo represents your brand and your business’s personality so it should be on your card.
Don’t use a photo unless you are in real estate. Many people
(realtors included!) don’t think it’s a good idea to have photos on
their business cards. It’s considered unprofessional, except in real
estate for some strange reason. Supposedly a photo makes the realtor
more memorable, but the jury’s out on that one. Anyway, don’t put your
photo on your card.
Using general picture business cards. This isn’t the same as the
previous mistake. This means don’t use a picture of the ocean or a
really nice mountain scene as your background to your text. The color
of your cardstock should be white or off-white. That’s not to say not
to use color at all – color business cards look professional and
tasteful if just an accent color is used on your logo or on just your
name. Too much color is overkill and doesn’t look professional.