Your most important item of print?

Clients often ask me what would you say is the most important item of print. Emphatically, I would always respond with the business card.

When WJ first started printing business cards, almost inevitably they followed a standard format, single colour, double at most, single sided with limited information apart from name, title, company and contact details.

Nowadays, that ugly duckling of a card has evolved into something rather more beautiful and harder working for businesses. Almost inevitably they are now four colour, printed both sides with a wealth of information about the individual and his or her business. They also contain a variety of ways in which that individual can be contacted. Not just telephone number, fax and email. Nowadays, prospective customers can also contact the individual through the inclusion social networking details such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn or be transported directly through to the company website via a QR code. In essence, they have become mini brochures.

As such, the whole marketplace has become far more competitive. Yet again the bar is being raised. Seemingly, four colour, double sided printing is now the minimum entry point for having professional business cards produced. So how can you make your business cards be sufficiently different and more memorable?

Here are a number of suggestions which can make you and your business stand out from the crowd:

• Never opt for the cheapest on-line price – there are some amazing on-line deals to be had, but quality and cheapness seldom go hand in hand. The cheapest end result…is always disappointing and one which will never reflect well on your business
• Forme cutting – unusually shaped cards are always more memorable
• Print on a thicker board – 560gsm or thicker screams quality
• Print on a two tone board – inevitably thicker, professional and delivering that quality feel
• Use of specialist print enhancing techniques – the use of gloss or matt lamination, spot UV varnish, foiling, debossing and embossing will all provide that point of professional difference
• Think four page or more – twice the available printing space means that you can tell prospective customers twice as much about your business
• Think Concertina – a ten panel concertina card (which we incidentally use) really has become a mini brochure

Over the years, WJ through our own dedicated studio has produced cards utilising all of the above enhancements and with the vast majority of clients returning for reprints, it would seem that our advice is paying dividends.