Business cards come with a limited amount of space to help you in selling your skills. However, they also provide you with a lot of chances to make an unforgettable first impression which, unfortunately, is often challenging to overcome. An unprofessionally designed business card makes you fail in the competition of attracting potential clients.

If you want to stay at the head of the competition, make sure you avoid the following mistakes when crafting a business card.

Outdated and Lack of Essential Information

We all know that contact details are the most essential part of a business card. Opting out one or two crucial pieces of information will hardly encourage the recipients to get in touch with you. Let alone when all the provided contact information is outdated. People will get your card in the trash without hesitation, no matter how attractive the card might be.

Before dealing with the visualization of your business card, make sure to include the following essential information:

• Full business name
• Personal name
• Job title or specialization
• Company address if there’s physical location can be visited
• Company website URL
• Email address
• Phone number
• One or two professional social media accounts
  

Keep in mind to leave some space if some of your contact details are outdated or no longer in service, like your phone number. You can simply jot down the new number on the provided blank space without creating whole new business cards.

Poor Readability and Legibility

There is always the urge to include everything in a small-sized business card. However, such action will only make the content difficult to read and ultimately make it unusable no matter how excellent the design is.

Avoid using typography with low readability. Even better, avoid using a script font unless you are a professional calligrapher who wants to prove your worth. Also, don’t try to be overly creative, for it might backfire, and your potential clients will have difficulty reading the text. 

You can experiment with the size of your selected font. For instance, you simplified and large-sized text if your target market is elderly people. Also, be sure to avoid employing fonts in small sizes just to fit in additional information.

Excessive Use of Visual Elements

Visual elements can either make or break your business cards. If you add too much, your card’s recipients will be frustrated just by looking at the card with all of the information and images crammed together. Let alone if there is no white space at all. People will immediately get rid of your card.

Not only does visual clutter irritate the eye, but it also gives the impression that your company and yourself are disorganized. Thus, remove redundant text and make the most of use the two sides of the card to evenly spread details. Also, only include graphics that have something to do with your company brand, like logomarks.

Lack of Branding

It’s totally acceptable to play safe with generic visual components. Yet the drawback is your card will be forgettable. A business card will be easily recognized if it features a distinctive focal point that sets it apart from other competitors.

Rather than using standard clipart, consider displaying your company logo. Better yet, use the brand color as the background. Match the entire design with the aesthetic of your products, store, or even website. The moment people see those elements in your business cards, they will automatically associate them with the products or services you offer.

Poor Design Proportions

Avoiding imbalanced design proportions when creating a business card doesn’t automatically require an aptitude for graphic design. Everyone is capable of producing balanced designs because our perception will instantly tell us—even without realizing it—when the proportions and shapes of a design are slightly off. 

However, there is one practical solution to avoid strange proportions in a business card creation, namely using templates. These pre-made layouts are an exceptional tool that benefits you in many ways, including avoiding the misaligned design. They also come with ready-to-use visual components that make the taxing design process easier and quicker.

To Conclude

Some may assume that creating business cards is easy because of their size. This small-sized card, in fact, must convey a lot about your brand. Try to set aside your ego and be a brutal editor. Develop a keen eye for design flaws that are often hard to spot. If you prefer to play safe and dodge all those mistakes all at once, consider using a professionally-designed template.