A business card is an advertising ‘foot soldier’, presenting your client's company image and (more importantly) their contact information to potential clients, customers and networking opportunities. A large percentage of business cards handed out end up in the round file - everyone’s got a card and only a small percentage get kept. How to make yours stand out? That’s a good question. Depends on the logo you’re working with, as well the amount of copy you want your card to feature. Some things to keep in mind…

Horizontal or vertical business cards?

While the traditional idea of a business card is that of a horizontal format, sometimes a vertical aspect ratio can work nicely. Vertical cards are generally not appropriate for info-heavy cards - company name and various contact information is about all we can fit. Vertical format cards showcase your logo nicely, and can be quite artistic from a graphics perspective. Many people overlook the back of their cards - perfect for some more info, or some tastefully designed graphics. Unlike larger print items, if there’s an additional printing cost to a back print, it should be minimum. Your printer can produce the run as a ‘working turn’ (a technique where cards are set up as an ‘imposition’ - a combination of card backs and fronts - and the sheet is flipped over once one run is complete).

Horizontal business cards are close to the ‘golden mean’ ratio and are the most common type of business cards floating around. We can generally fit more information into this format, but are somewhat restricted in the design freedom, hampered by the layout. A typical design will see the logo on the left, with contact info on the right side. When it comes to putting information on their card, many clients try to fit as much data as humanly possible. Try to keep it to a minimum. Too much information and the typeface will have to be miniscule and difficult to read. Informal rule of thumb is to keep font sizes to 9pt and larger. While we’re talking about information on a card - remember to include website address and e-mail. That’s if you’re using a domain specific address - hotmail or yahoo addresses should never be used on a card. It screams “I’m using a free e-mail service and don’t have my own website!”). Some folks have requested our designers use their hotmail or yahoo e-mail addy to avoid spammers - fair enough goal, but most e-mail addresses are scraped by bots from ‘live’ links on websites, not from foraging around trash cans trying to find business cards.

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Using colour on your cards

If your logo is a full colour CMYK design (as opposed to the more economical spot colour format) - often required with illustrative logo treatments - you may be tempted to ‘go to town’ on the design of your business card. “I have to pay for full colour printing, so I should take advantage” kind of thinking. Makes sense in the economics department but can cause the design of your card to suffer drastically. Best keep the design accents and flourishes to a minimum. Let your logo ‘do the talking’ - after all, that’s what you want people to notice. Your business card is supposed to accent your logo, not overwhelm it.

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Letterhead design and printing tips

Now that we've discussed business cards, let's take a look at letterhead design, and something that’s just as important - getting letterheads printed, after the design phase is complete. Many clients and designers will choose to work directly with a local printer, and might be new to working with offset print shops and some of the jargon involved. There are also some design issues that may effect how your stationery is printed, who you select to print it, and how much it will cost. Here’s a few pointers that may help steer you in the right direction.

Is artwork that bleeds worth it?

From a design perspective, letterhead artwork that bleeds can be visually appealing, but can add dramatically to the cost of printing. While many clients love the look of full bleed letterheads, the cost is often prohibitive - something we always warn about before continuing. When any artwork is placed on a printed piece, and the artwork is located on the absolute edge of the paper, it is said to ‘bleed’, referring to the artwork ‘bleeding’ off the edges of the page. In order to get images, colour fields or artwork to ‘bleed’ off the edges, we have to print the artwork on paper that is larger than the desired size and cut it back. This can add significant cost to a printing job - larger paper, larger press and an additional step.

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Letterheads and desktop printers

In terms of printing letterheads on a desktop printer, you should keep this in mind - most desktop printers cannot print ‘bleeds’ but rather need to place a margin (sometimes as large as 1/2″ around the artwork) inside the edges of the sheet. If you’re only planning to print your letterhead personally using your PC and desktop printer as opposed to using commercial print service, it’s advisable that your artwork be set up accordingly. If you wish to print both commercially and personally, then you might want to have two sets of artwork files setup. This may cost a little more during the design phase, but well worth it for the flexibility.

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Check those colours

If your letterhead and stationery has been designed as spot colour material, it is critical that BEFORE having them commercially printed that you ALWAYS check your colours with a Pantone colour Swatch Book. This is the only way to insure that the colours contained in your letterhead will print as you planned. The Pantone Matching System (PMS) is the ‘industry standard’ for matching colours so if your printer tells you that they don’t have one, you should probably think about selecting another printer. If you plan to print your letterheads on your personal printer, and depending on the software you’re using, it may not be able to reproduce spot colours accurately. The printer and software can only ‘guess’ what colours are contained in your artwork and may fudge things up as they try to create a ‘next best’ combination. If your long-range plans involve ONLY printing your stationery in your home office, it’s best to set up the artwork using CMYK colours - standard printing inks that personal printers use.

If you've decided to take the leap and have your stationery printed commercially, always ask for a ‘press proof’ of your job. While it’s sometimes difficult to get a proof that’s completely accurate when using spot colours (most proofing systems are set up for CMYK and 4 colour process) it will give you a rough idea, and will also allow you to check for typos and spelling errors before it’s too late. Reprinting your letterheads or business cards because your address and phone number were wrong is an expensive proposition.

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Coated and uncoated paper stock colour issues

If you’re printing your letterhead, business card and envelope package on a combination of coated (glossy) and uncoated (matte) papers - typical with ‘glossy’ business cards and letterheads - keep in mind that the Coated and Uncoated surfaces may shift the colours and they may not match exactly across your stationery. Your printer can adjust for this by using different colour inks for each part of your print job, but this may increase the price of the print run. It all depends on your focus - quality or economy. Using dual uncoated and coated colours can be very expensive but your colours will match (almost) exactly.

colours may not match exactly if you attempt to print spot colours as a CMYK (four colour process) job. Many printers will simply change the colours to CMYK in your original files - this is haphazard at best. There’s a Pantone Spot to Process Formula book that allows you to choose CMKY equivalents to your spot colours. Use that beforehand, or ask an experienced designer to do it for you. Keep in mind that certain spot colours do not convert exactly. Also, if your printer is using a ‘gang run’ - grouping your letterheads and/or business cards with other pieces on a large sheet (that’s how these services are so cheap) - expect varying colours from run to run. This type of printing is designed to be cheap, not precise, and you’re not paying for exacting colour standards. Be realistic in your expectations if using any printer with the phrase ‘discount’ repeated often in their advertising.

Gang printing is the type of printing used by most ‘online’ printers. It’s economical sure, but judging by our experience, the quality tends to be a little hit and miss.

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Envelope design tips

When it comes to their stationery package, many clients view their envelope as a humble, second thought ‘throw away’ - merely something in which the important stuff is delivered. Nothing more, nothing less. Accordingly, the design process for envelopes doesn't get terribly involved - usually consists of slapping on the company logo and a return address in the top left corner. But shouldn’t we look at ALL the various stationery components - business card, letterhead and envelope as important in order to ramp up the 'ah-ha' factor? After all, isn’t an envelope the first thing many will see before viewing the enclosed letterhead and/or business card? There are also some really important caveats to envelope design and it’s probably a good idea to understand what is, and what isn’t possible when it comes to laying out the design of an envelope, and how some designs may cost a fortune to print.

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Design your envelope with printing in mind

Generally speaking, envelope printing is quite different to that of letterheads or business cards. The majority of the time, printers will use envelopes that have been pre-assembled - flaps and pockets already glued and constructed - and this can present some challenges on the press, for which we have to compensate for during the design process. As an envelope is not completely flat, it tends to move around a little when being printed - air can get captured inside - and this is something that has to be factored into our design thinking. Tolerances for registration are not as exacting as for other 'flat' printed pieces. Also, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to use bleed printing on a pre-constructed envelope as any 'live art' area in the envelope design usually requires fairly healthy margins. There is a way around this if your client is set on artwork that bleeds - the envelope can be printed BEFORE construction, which is fantastic in terms of design 'freedom', but can lead to extremely expensive production charges. Pre-printing envelopes is usually out of budget range for most small and medium sized companies. Because of the press slippage we just mentioned, it’s also best to avoid four color process printing to avoid 'tight' registration problems. It’s more effective, and economical, to utilize either a spot, or even one colour, version of your client's logo and business information. That’s not to say you CAN’T feature full colour bleed artwork on an envelope, or that you shouldn’t. It’s just going to be more expensive to print your envelopes if you choose to do so.

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Ingredients of a decent envelope design

In terms of the ingredients of a decent envelope design - that’s pretty well standardized. We have to factor in the practical applications necessary, as well as postal restrictions. We're pretty well stuck with company logo, name, return address, maybe a tag line or call to action. If there's any real estate left, we can utilize some design elements - portions of the logo or some complementary graphics. Generally speaking, we don’t put phone numbers on envelopes - though you can if you want. Recently, the debate has become whether or not to feature your client’s web address on the envelope. Sure - why not? As a rule of thumb, a company web address should be plastered onto every single scrap of paper that leaves your client's office. While an envelope is often headed for the ’round file’, the few seconds it spends in front of a potential clients eyeballs should certainly be a factor in how we design it.

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