It is a good investment for your business to have a stylized business card design. What will your potential customer remember when he looks at this card in a few months? If your card does not stand out that potential customer may not use your card when your services are what he or she needs. Your card represents your business. Work with a good designer that will make your card stand out in a crowd.

There is very little space available on a card so every item placed on the card must be essential to what you are trying to convey to a potential customer. If your name or the company name is the element that is critical to point out to the customer that surround it with white space. White space will cause the eye to be drawn to it.

Graphics should only be used if it helps identify who you are and what you do, not just to fill up space. White space would do more for you than a graphic that was not specific to what you are promoting. A logo would be important in this case, or possibly a photo of you if that is what you are promoting. In using color on the type, less is considered more. Too much variety in colors of type could make the card look confusing. The colors of the background and the type should have a good contrast for easy readability.

Keep in mind that graphic design does not follow the grammar rules you learned in school. If you have a list of items to place on your card consider using bullets instead of commas. It saves space and is eye catching. You will want to stick to one or two fonts. Remember that readability is the key. You can change the type by stretching, using italics or bold. When proofreading before you print, watch for typos and see if it is pleasing to the eye. Does the company name stand out from the rest of the print? If not try to add white space around it and tighten up some of the other copy.

The one thing you do not want to do is ‘shotgun’ the design. That is a typesetting term that means everything is equally spaced between each line and nothing is standing out. Whether it is right justified or centered is not the issue. If nothing stands out why would your potential customer call you? You want the main item to be what catches the eye first. Then you should have a second and possibly a third item that is important. You use font, size and possibly color to make that happen.

There are different types of cards to use these days. You can have a one sided card, a two sided card or a folded card. Depending on how much information you have to share should determine which style you use. One sided cards will have the basic information of name, phone number, web site, email address and maybe address and fax number, depending on if you are an online business or a brick and mortar business. Two sided cards give you the opportunity to tell more to the potential customer about what you do. A folded card really gives you options on spacing, graphics and listing your information.

To check your design, hold it out at arms length. See where your eye goes. Is the first thing you see the most important element on your card? Then where does your eye go? And does your eye see the third element? If your eye goes where you want it to at arms length, then your customer to be will also. Make sure you have a good designer to help with these things, then you will be ready to hand them out.

Steven Snell is a web designer and blogger from Pennsylvania. His site includes some examples of amazing business card design for your inspiration. Don’t miss the collections of cool business card design and professional business card design.