So how do I design a nice business card you ask? Excellent question, let’s get started.

Make the Logo… Better

Resist the common urge to make the logo as big you as can. Keep it as the main visual element but don’t over do it. You will never improve your brand through physical size alone. It should be the only graphic element on your card and people won’t have problems seeing it at reasonable size. By denying this urge, you’ll be preserving your professional dignity and subtly displaying your marketing prowess.

In addition to paying close attention to sizing, ensure your logo displays clearly without any sign of stretching, pixelation, blurriness, or other factors that detract from a pristine appearance. Don’t substitute your logo with clip art, especially if it’s a real photo.

To get off on the right foot, use the right file format. If your logo was professionally designed and you are using a layout software program like InDesign or Publisher, always use an EPS file for your logo. If you are working in a Microsoft Word template, try asking your graphic designer to create your logo in a file format called WMF.

Moo.com is a great option too. They have tons of great looking templates and easy to use tools, but to get a good result, you’ll need to use an EPS file.

If you’ve exhausted your options and your logo remains blurry. It’s time to throw in the towel and hire a graphic designer.

Text Sells

Please choose your fonts wisely. Instead of getting creative with Comic Sans or Papyrus, keep your wits about you and a font from respectable family. If you are worried about choosing wisely, first try matching with a font that might be in your logo. If that font seems professional to you, and it should be if your logo uses it, stick to what you know.

If you can’t rely on your logo for guidance, Quicksand, Open Sans, and Museo, are all great free sans-serif choices. Or, if you need something more serious, why not try Afta, Calluna, or EB Garamond.

Remember, just use one font. Two fonts makes the quiet suggestion that you are trying too hard, more than two fonts screams un-professionalism. Keep your text small but not too small. 8 point type is usually perfect. Any larger and you are asking for a cluttered look that may cause people to be see right through your DIY handiwork.

Example of a bad business card

Example of a nice business card

Stack, Space, and Spare the details

Organization is key to a nice business card. Balanced information that lives in harmony with your logo and a good amount of white space, especially around the edges of the card, is the perfect recipe for success. Keep the details simple. Phone, e-mail, website, name and title are common components. Long URLs to your many social media profiles are not necessary. Unless you can make a printed Facebook icon clickable, leave it off.

Your marketing efforts should flow smoothly from your card to your website to a transaction. Leave people a trail to follow and provide pertinent information along the way. Your business card is a simple welcome mat to your business.

The less information you include, the more room for valuable white space that will help attract attention to your logo, make your information easier to read, and make the jump from home-made and visual excellence.

Proper Printing

The finishing touch is the paper you choose to print on. Avoid at home printing kits – nothing says cheap junk like perforated edges. Instead, drop by your neighbourhood print shop (this one’s in Texas) or an online printing service with your finished design and choose or a nice, thick stock. Don’t settle for something flimsy. The money you spend on quality printing will come back to you in profits once you start impressing people with your nice business cards.

Follow these simple guidelines and you’ll be in business in no time! If I’ve missed anything, let me know in the comments.

Tips for putting the finishing touches on a business proposal. Advice for dealing with a perilous relationship. Walkthroughs on how to build a fence on your particularly sloped backyard. Questions like this can sometimes be solved with a quick Google, by asking your friends, or by taking an old-fashioned trip to the library. Sometimes, though, your question is a little too precise, a little too obscure, or a little too convoluted for those sources to solve.

Thanks to the web, there are now countless services that let you put willing experts and helpful strangers to work answering your unsolved riddles. Below is a brief tour of some of 2009′s best sources for crowdsourced answers.

For non-profits: try Urbantastic

Founded by Vancouverites Heath Johns and Ben Johnson, Urbantastic is breaking new ground for micro-volunteering. If you want to help your city become “a more friendly, more lively, more benevolent place,” you can volunteer from home by completing tasks posted by local charities. As of mid-April 2009, there is now an “Ask a Question” feature, where you can help non-profits find answers to questions ranging from marketing advice to event planning.

Sample question: Where should we get our 2009 t-shirts printed?

On the go, from your phone: try Cha Cha

ChaCha describes itself as “mobile answers.” Call 1-800-2ChaCha from your mobile phone, tweet to @chacha, or text your question to 242242, and “you’ll receive the answer as a text message in a few minutes.” It’s not as new or crazy as you think: just last week, ChaCha officially answered their 100,000,000th question (that’s one hundred million). Questions submitted by you are routed to a subject-matter-expert (a “guide”), and within minutes, you’ll have your answer.

Sample question: Who is responsible for preparation of the president’s budget?

For a business angle: try LinkedIn Answers

Since LinkedIn is the go-to social networking site for business professionals, it means you’ve got thousands of pros gathered in one place eager to establish reputations for themselves. It also means you’ve got a ripe crop of potential question-answerers ready to help you out. LinkedIn’s Answers section lets you tap into the crowd to ask any question you like, receiving multiple answers from multiple perspectives.

Sample question: Which personal finance / budgeting / money tracking / money management software do you prefer and why?

For everything from relationship advice to technology tips: try AskMetafilter

AskMetafilter is one of the web’s mainstays for crowdsourced queries. Since 2003, AskMetafilter has been providing the “hive mind” perspective on countless issues, from personal dilemmas to business propositions. You can post anonymously or with your own username, and the result is a selection of opinions, ideas and opinions that will help you make a well-informed decision. Or, just find some really, really obscure info.

Sample question: I need advice or a good book to read on how to (i)not let my career and continuing education take over my life and (ii) keep myself from being negatively transformed through stressful experiences.

For live help from a real person: try Skype Prime

Receiving advice from somebody on the phone can be a much more reassuring experience than just blasting a question out into cyberspace and twiddling your thumbs while you wait. Skype Prime connects you in real-time to somebody whose background relates to the help you need, and lets you talk via Skype to walk through your issue. It is a paid service, though, which might be a deal-breaker for people looking for easy online answers.

Sample question: Can somebody show me how to use the clone stamp tool in Photoshop?

For in-depth research and oddball inquiries: try Wikipedia’s Reference Desk

If you can’t make it to your local library, the next best option is Wikipedia’s Reference Desk. Think of it as your opportunity to ask a helpful, diligent expert the weirdest questions you can think of. Although Wikipedia often gets a bad rap in academic circles for being a little too lax on its fact-checking, the fact is that anybody who is dedicated enough to pour hours of effort into editing a public encyclopedia is likely a smart, diligent person.

Sample question: What’s a word meaning misplaced nationalism?

For well-researched answers you have to pay for: try Uclue

Uclue calls itself “a professional, fast, and inexpensive research service.” Name your price (how much you’re willing to pay for an answer), and you’ll have yourself a crew of researchers out looking to earn that bounty. Staffed by former Google Answers Researchers, Uclue specializes in digging up the details on any topic imaginable.

Sample question: How to change your identity (UK)?

Arcade Fire, with milk & toast

Chosen by Adam Neilson, Co-founder & Director of Production
Burnkit Creative
Vancouver, BC

1. Arcade Fire’s “Neon Bible” music video
Such a simple idea, but totally unique, and because of it Arcade Fire gets exposure they could never hope to with a traditional music video (and on a much slimmer budget to boot).

2. Get the Glass
I spent 40 minutes on this the first time I saw it, and a few 30 minute sessions at other times. And, through them all, my 4 year old daughter was just as compelled as I was. This is an incredible creative and technical feat, to occupy my attention for that long.

3. Interactive Bread
A really smart, cost effective interactive idea that didn’t need the internet.

Behance Action Book

Chosen by Alan Houser, Chief Creative Officer
Creative Component
Sheridan, Indiana

You would think when asking a Web Designer to tell you his favorite innovation of 2007, he would respond with something technical, or even his favorite web site example. While I’ve added thousands of great links to my del.icio.us account, my favorite design innovation is the BEHANCE ACTION BOOK. The Action Book is part of Behance’s Action Method product line, the first in a series of Behance projects to help creative professionals boost productivity and make ideas happen. It’s not only saved me from forgetting important things, it’s also made me appear organized and cooler than I actually am.

Authenticity

Chosen by Andrea Bonilla, Communications and Promotions
Mount Hermon Camps
Santa Cruz, California

My favorite design innovation from 2007 cannot be pinned to one piece or advertising campaign, but more as a trend I experienced time and time again. We all agree that the words of our culture are becoming increasingly more dependent on images. However, I feel that the images that have become popularized are those which communicate with authenticity. It’s not so much a focus on the glossy and glamorous, but rather, a straightforward focus on reality. Whether it be a campaign for real beauty, or to save the environment there is a newfound craving for a frank look at the reality of the present situation, and a reflection asking “Who are we, now?” The pursuit of authenticity has been my favorite design trend of 2007. It has invited me to not only gaze upon a well-constructed design, but enter in, to participate and to respond.

London 2012 Olympics Logo

Chosen by Kevan Gilbert, Web & Technical Administrator
Union Gospel Mission
Vancouver, BC

The London 2012 Olympic logo was a thoroughly reviled specimen, decried worldwide for its over-priced ugliness. While its reputation has not improved during these past few months, the logo was able to achieve a remarkable feat: it got the general public excited about graphic design. Non-designers around the globe gleefully engaged the topic, discussing everything from its colour usage to its cost. Legions of wannabes tried their hands at re-doing the logo, and thousands of laypeople voiced their thoughts on the brand, in newspapers, radio shows and blogs. It was as if the masses willingly dove into a spontaneous, educational round table meeting on the subject graphic design, all thanks to London.

Rosa Loves

Chosen by Leah Albertson, Marketing Intern
TOMS Shoes
Los Angeles, California

Designers are really owning up to a global responsibility to do good for others, and not just aesthetically. Rosa Loves creates t-shirts for causes: a family in Bangladesh, victims of a housefire, holiday meals for the homeless, a walker for a woman who couldn’t afford one otherwise. These “love projects” provide a tangible and immediate way to provide real help. All the proceeds from each shirt sold go to the family/persons/cause after whom the design was created. “Rosa Loves is less about charity and more about awareness,” reads the website. “Awareness that we are all apart of something greater and are therefore joined by common threads.”

Saskatoon Blades logo

Chosen by Neil Gilbert, Owner & Lead Designer
Elbowroom Design
Calgary, Alberta

One could argue that my selection for this list was a motivated by patriotism; an effort to showcase some quality Canadian content. I may have also selected it just to be different. Although none of these motivations lack validity, I am proud to present the Saskatoon Blades logo for your consideration. The simple construction of the logo combined with layers of meaning is what I think makes it great. To have the vision to associate the “S” and the “B” with a 3- dimensional skate blade and combine it with the powerful imagery of the hilt and blade of a dangerous looking knife is uncommonly clever. The combination of three simple colours is effective and clean. The precise vertical balance of the elements used, makes the threat of being sliced up abundantly clear. (Click here to read more about this logo…)

Cover Flow

Chosen by Wendy Yuen, Web Engineer
Marqui Inc.
Vancouver, BC

With just over 50 years of history, the future of album art was starting to look precarious. What happens when people don’t need to buy “albums” anymore? In the age of iPods and digital delivery of music, the extinction of cover art was definitely possible. Thanks to Apple (the folks who might have had a hand in starting the end of album art), things are looking up. With Cover Flow technology being introduced in third generation iPod models, the genre of cover art may be heading for a dramatic change (small pixel packaging that can potentially be animated) but it isn’t going to be obsolete any time soon.

World Wildlife Fund ad campaigns

Chosen by Zach Bulick, Editor
Pillar Yearbook at Trinity Western University
Langley, BC

In 2007, being green was just as cool as being deemed hipster in 2005. Daily, the terminology and helpful tips to be more eco-friendly were talked about in the media. Though many of the things being communicated were good for the environment/world, when inundated with the same message constantly, it just makes it easier for viewers to block it out and become immune to it. The World Wildlife Fund had some outstanding ads this year that not only presented their messages clearly, but also left a lasting impression on the viewer because of their connection to the average, everyday life. These ads did what many ads aspire to do; connecting the actions of the everyday consumer to the effects those actions have on the world around us.

Paper Dispenser (Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Plant a Tree (Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Bangalore, India)
Ocean Levels (Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Toilet Roll (Agency: Fcb, Shangai, China)
Black Cloud (Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Beijing, China)

In Closing…

It seems that 2007 marked a clear shift towards design with purpose, art with heart, and advertising with a social conscience. While perhaps this supports our observation from earlier this year, there is also overwhelming evidence that creativity in all areas of design is alive and well. From the breakthrough album art viewers to small-town Canadian hockey logos, designers are sharper and more relevant than ever. If this is what 2007 gave us, we can’t wait to see what comes in 2008.

Hi there Paul,

We actually do resell hosting packages to all of our web clients. We have a partnership with a hosting company called ICDsoft, who provides reliable hosting and 24/7 support for all of our clients. We’ve used their services for years, and we highly recommend them.

We like ICDsoft because they are privately owned and completely debt-free. They also have a great support team available to their clients 24/7. We typically hear back from them on an issue within minutes of posting a ticket. ICDsoft offers state-of-the-art data centres in Boston and Hong Kong which means wherever you are, they can offer fast connection speed. We also like the fact that their web hosting control panel is easy to navigate with a well designed interface and easy to understand features. Here is a screen shots of the control panel:

If you are a graphic designer or web developer and manage numerous hosting accounts, ICD Soft provides an awesome dashaboard that enables you to keep all your hosting accounts in one place. You can manage, renew, and login to all hosting accounts from this screen. Check it out:

ICD’s approach to working with designers and developers makes it easy to re-sell their unbranded services (such as webmail) to your clients. Overall, we’re very happy customers and would recommend ICDsoft to anyone looking for a reliable and responsive hosting provider.

Click here to get started with ICDsoft, or get in touch with us directly to ask questions and find answers.

Good luck!

Don’t Publish
Whenever you are posting a comment, placing an ad, or using an online service like Flickr, make sure you don’t post your address. These kinds of places are the targets of spam spiders and other pesky creatures of the internet. Spammers use these spiders, which are automated computer programs, to scan web pages in an effort to find “mailto” links. If your e-mail address is publicly displayed, it is easy prey for spammers.

Presentation Counts
If you are thinking about including a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, or a PDF on a website for investors or potential clients. Be sure that your only contact information is a phone number or a link to the website in the form of a url. Spiders and Bots not only have the ability to index web pages but also other types of files as well. Be aware that anything you put online is potentially visible to spiders.

Encode your Address
As an alternative to inconvenient e-mail address hidden in image files, or the classic “me at domain dot com” text tricks, why not take advantage of some new advancements. By using java script or html you can hide your address in a way that won’t cut down on functionality. By using these tools, you can have the protection you need with the clickability everyone wants. For those mac users out there, here’s a nice widget that will do the job quite nicely. For PC users, here’s a site that offers the same service.

Use a Contact Form
Perhaps instead of using e-mail addresses as the primary contact method, consider a contact form instead. It’s easy and will stealthily protect your address without much hassle.

Search and Destroy
Finally, find out where e-mail addresses are already published by doing a search. Simply type your e-mail address into a search engine and see what comes up. If you find anything, track down the source and remove your address from that website.

Hopefully you find these tips helpful in waging war on inbox invaders. If you have any other tips to share, send us an e-mail. Just kidding, but feel free to leave a comment.

I’ve no real idea what I’m doing but came across this site looking for a way to promote my site as a graphic illustrator, designer and re-toucher. I switched from fine art six years ago and although I have a simple site up and running I have no real idea of where I go from here. Any help and comments, (positive and negative) would be welcome.

With thanks,
Vicky.

Thanks for the note, and for the link to your site! Your restoration of old photographs and your original illustrations were our favourite parts.

It can be hard to promote yourself on the web, but we’ve been learning a few ideas as we go along, especially as we try and promote Elbowruminations. Here are the five things we’ve decided are most important.

1. Decide on your website’s purpose: personal or commercial.
2. Make sure your site is professional designed.
3. Write great content so users and search engines can find you.
4. Hook up with other websites and blogs.
5. Tell people about yourself.

That’s a quick overview. Now we’ll go a little more in depth.

5 tips for promoting your work on the web

1. Decide on your website’s purpose.
Before you promote your site, make sure it’s ready for the public. Start by determining what its purpose is. Are you creating a website so you have a personal portfolio that you can tell your friends and colleagues about? Or are you hoping it will be the home base for your business? It’s important to know that from the start, because it will influence how you design it and what kind of content you include. If your website is for business, here are three things to remember:

• Include a page that lists your prices and services in an easy-to-read, detailed manner.
• Include multiple ways to contact you: email address and phone number.
• Make sure your site is professionally designed.

2. Make sure your site is professionally designed.

It’s important to have a website that respectfully shows off your work. If your site looks bad, many people will assume that your work is low-quality, too. If your main skills are in illustration, fine art or another field besides web development, there are a couple ways to create a well-designed site:

1. The first one is free: use a template to build your site. We like WordPress – it’s free web software that lets you use pre-designed templates, and makes it very, very easy to add, delete and edit pages. It would be great for your site. You can visit WordPress.com to sign up for a free account whenever you want.
2. The second option costs money, but would guarantee excellent results: you could hire a professional web developer to create a professional, easy-to-use website for you.

3. Make sure your site is optimized for search engines.

Search engine optimization (or “SEO”) can be intimidating, but don’t get thrown off by all the jargon and technical jabber spoken by most of the web. If you remember one thing, it should be to make sure your site includes lots of “keyword-rich” content. Your site should include text, not just images. Where possible, describe your work using the same terms you’d expect someone to type into Google to find your kind of work. For instance, if you do photo-retouching, include a paragraph that describes your services.

If you are interested in learning more, Darren Crowes, owner of a website called ProBlogger, has published some very helpful tips to assist website owners in getting their websites better recognized by search engines. Visit his article called Search Engine Optimization for Blogs, and scroll down to the heading called “On Site SEO Techniques.”

4. Hook up with other websites and blogs.

One of the best ways to promote your site is to have other people do it for you. If you can spread links to your site all over the web, people will have a better chance of finding you. Here are a few quick tips:

1. Find other websites that promote people who do your kind of work. For instance, if you’re an illustrator, see if you can connect with IllustrationWeb.
2. Include a section on your site for links to other sites. If you have friends or colleagues with websites, link to their sites in this section. The web loves reciprocity: if you link to one person, they will often link back to you.
3. Sign up for an account on Flickr, and post some of your work to your account.

5. Tell people about yourself

Don’t be afraid to promote your own work. It’s important that you are willing to talk about yourself and the work you do. Here are some ways to do that:

• Find other illustrators, designers or bloggers that you think would be interested in your work, and send them a quick email introducing yourself, and include a link to your site.
• Send out an announcement email or a newsletter to your friends, or tell them in person about your site.
• Include your domain name on your business cards.
• Leave a note with Elbowruminations and get featured in the Q&A section!

Elbowroom says:
That course at your college will probably give you a good overview of the software. However, “desktop publishing” is kind an old-school term, and usually refers to fairly elementary layout tasks. It’s Graphic Design adapted for everyday, at-home or small-office uses, rather than Graphic Design for professional applications in a design studio. The course won’t be very advanced or cutting edge, but will likely give you a good start in the programs.

Elbowroom says:
You might want to consider taking a Bachelor of Design at the Alberta College of Art & Design. Another good option would be the New Media and Production Design diploma at SAIT.

-André

Hi André,
That’s awesome that you’re so into Graphic Design — a good choice, if we do say so ourselves. As far as getting a start in your career, knowing Photoshop is an excellent start. We use the entire Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) for our design work. We find that different projects require different software, as you probably know too. Photoshop is great for photo editing, and for preparing images for the web. Illustrator is needed for designing logos, and other vector-based graphics. InDesign is necessary for laying out large amounts of text for books, magazines, brochures and so on. But we find that all Adobe products have a very similar feel, so if you already know Photoshop pretty well, you won’t have much trouble figuring out the other programs.

As for advice starting your career, we actually have a piece here on Elbowruminations called “How Do I Become a Graphic Designer?” You can check it out here. Our biggest piece of advice is “start practicing.” Just use whatever software you can and start imitating design work that you like, learning the software, learning different techniques, and developing your own style. And don’t give up, either. As designers, we’re always seeing OTHER designers who seem to be way better than us, and it can make us feel really inferior. But every designer has their own style and talent, so keep at it.

Sincerely,
- Elbowroom Design