Business card designs / development

Last Friday, we were asked to produce our own set of business cards ready for the following Wednesday, a short brief with limited time to produce something that would be good enough to give out to design professionals and potential clients.

Due to the limited amount of time and also wanting to leave my own branding for a later date that would tie in with a redevelopment of my website and branding materials, I aimed to produce temporary business card that would be used to give out to more specific people such as visiting designers and working professionals. I wanted something that would be striking; something that would stand out with the only function of being able to leave an impression and carry my contact and website details.

As it would be a temporary business card, I felt that I had more flexibility with the design; the cost didn't restrict me too much as I won't be producing too many, it's temporary so the notion of experimenting a bit more encouraged the design. This also made me decide on something a lot quicker, I didn't really have much time as I had to consider the time it would take for the production side aswell so only explored 2 different routes.

The 1st route was to produce a limited number of 26 business cards; each one would carry my details and a letter from the alphabet. I wanted to produce a custom typeface that would contribute to a 'set' of cards that I would give out to specific people.The image below shows a few developments of this, I had the idea of getting the card's laser cut, with the letter cut through and details engraved onto the material. This didn't really work out however as the aesthetics of each letter of the alphabet on the cards didn't really fit with the function of the business cards, I realised that they didn't really communicate 'type lead designer' as I had hoped so this idea was scrapped.

My 2nd route followed the same direction in terms of the production side of it, my main thoughts behind the business card was that I wanted to communicate : professional, ambitious and type & print based designer. I also had to consider the use of these cards, I was not planning on printing masses and masses of these, as I wanted them to be more for specific people who I would contact during this year; professionals who I would speak to and give at the end of speaking to them as opposed to just dishing them out. With this in mind, I worked on a temporary identity that I would use, exploring the shapes and letter forms of my initials and layout of the information.