Business card design in Newcastle, NSW: a card people keep.

Your name, what you do, one number, and the business name. Everything past that is competing with the part somebody actually needs from it.

The job of a card is narrow. Somebody puts it in a pocket and rings the number days later, and the whole design question is whether the number is easy to find at that point.

What belongs on it

• Your name and what you do.

  The work in plain words, because a card found three weeks later has to answer who this person was.

• Just the one phone number, not two.

  It should be the one you actually answer. Two numbers on a card means somebody eventually chooses the wrong one.

• The business name and the logo.

  So that the card matches the vehicle, the quote and the website they will see next.

• One more thing after that, at most.

  A website, an email, or a suburb. Not all three of them together on the same side.

Everything else that ends up on cards is competing for attention with the number. Service lists, taglines, a second address and a row of social icons each make it busier and each go unused.

If the logo on the card matters to you, IP Australia explains what a trade mark actually protects, which is worth knowing before you print a thousand of them.

Because plenty of work still changes hands in person, and because a card is one of the few things a customer keeps. In a market this size it often travels on to somebody else.

People who never finish a job on somebody's property, or leave a meeting with a stranger, write cards off as old fashioned. The card left behind is often what produces the second call.

The card also travels on its own. A card on a fridge ends up photographed and sent to a neighbour, which is a referral the business never had to ask for.

The part worth spending on is what it feels like in a hand, because that is the only thing separating your card from the four others already in the drawer.

The stock does most of it. Thickness and finish change how the card feels in a hand, and that is what people register, ahead of anything about the layout.

What a logo costs is usually settled before a card is ordered, because the card is only as good as the mark printed on it.

The printing options sound technical and mostly they are decisions about feel and cost. Only a couple of them make a real difference to anything.

What the options do

• The thickness of the stock itself.

  That is the one people genuinely notice. A heavier card reads as an established business, and it is a small step up in price.

• Whether it is matte or gloss.

  Matte can be written on, which matters where somebody puts a price on the back, and gloss shows every fingerprint.

• The special finishes on offer.

  Raised ink, foil and coloured edges. They look good and cost several times the base price. Worth it where the card is part of the product.

• How many of them you order.

  Fewer than you would think. Details change, and a box of two thousand outdated cards is a very common sight.

One good card in one weight of stock, rather than four versions that stay in a drawer. The money is better spent on thickness than on a second design.

The logo as a vector file, meaning one that prints at any size without going fuzzy, the exact colour codes for print, and the details checked by somebody who did not write them.

Where a card is needed for a trade show or a van wrap, the mark can be produced in a hurry, provided the name and the sign-off are already settled.

A printed mistake behaves differently to one on a website. Ten minutes of checking is worth it against a box of cards carrying the wrong number.

What to have ready

• The vector logo file itself.

  The scalable original, which is what keeps the mark sharp at card size instead of soft and slightly blurred.

• The colour codes for print.

  They are different to the screen ones. A printer will ask for them, and guessing is how a brand colour comes back wrong.

• The details, read by somebody else.

  The phone, the email and the business name. The person who typed them is the worst possible person to check them.

• The name written exactly as registered.

  Written the way it appears on the paperwork, so the card matches everything else the business sends out.

Order a small run first where anything is likely to change. Cards are cheap enough that a second order costs less than a box nobody can hand out.

Gather the files first, decide the one job the card has to do, and keep the front simple. Proof it on paper rather than on a screen, then order a modest quantity.

Every step in this is a small one. The one that stalls a card job is always the first one.

1. Gather the files

Vector logo, print colour codes, typeface names. Where those do not exist, that is the actual job and it comes before anything else.

2. Decide the one job the card has to do

Usually it is getting somebody to ring the number. Everything else on the card then answers to that one thing.

3. The front stays simple

Name, what you do, number, logo. Where something else genuinely has to be on the card, it goes on the back instead.

4. Proof it on paper, not on a screen

Printed at actual size and held in a hand. Text that looked comfortable on a monitor is very often too small on a card.

5. Somebody else reads the details

Out loud, digit by digit for the phone number. That is the check catching the mistake that would otherwise cost the whole run.

6. Order a modest quantity

Enough of them for about a year. Details change more often than anybody plans for, and cards are cheap to reorder.

Days rather than weeks, once the logo files exist. Where they do not, gathering them is the real job and the card is the easy part afterwards.

The order it happens in

• First the files come together.

  Vector logo, print colour codes, typefaces. This is the step that stalls a card job, every time.

• Then the card is drawn up and proofed.

  Printed at actual size and held in a hand, rather than approved on a screen.

• Then the run actually prints.

  A modest one, on a stock chosen for how it feels rather than how it looked in a preview.

Where the logo has to be redrawn because no vector file exists, that is a separate job. It is worth knowing before anybody promises a date.

Ask whether the print files are yours to keep, which stock is being quoted, whether you get a printed proof, and whether the same design carries onto your other pieces.

These are worth asking of any designer, including this one, so the answers given here are underneath each question.

• Do I keep the print files?

  Yes, they stay yours. Without them the next print run starts by paying somebody to rebuild the card from a picture of it.

• Which stock is in the quote?

  The thickness and the finish, both named. It is the choice changing how the card feels, and it moves the price.

• Do I see a printed proof?

  At actual size, in a hand, before the run. A proof on a screen hides small type entirely.

• Does this match my other pieces?

  The quote, the invoice and the signage. A card designed on its own is how a business ends up with four different looks.

Where a brand kit already exists, meaning a written set of rules covering the colours and the type, a card is a small job. Where one does not, the card is worth doing alongside the rest.