Until recently most people did not look at business cards as interactive elements that can be made of different materials, textures and shapes, going far beyond what most people consider as standard practice.  Lets take a look at 50 extremely creative and original business cards and design tutorials that really help push the boundaries and show the extent some people go to set themselves apart in this competitive marketplace.

Chef Burger

Creative Business Cards — Chef Burger

Plastic Business Cards – Lined Paper

Creative Business Cards – Plastic Business Cards – Lined Paper

Interrobang Design

Interrobang Design

NetPlus ID

Creative Business Cards – NetPlus ID

Rumble

Creative Business Cards – Rumble

Couples Therapist Card

Creative Business Cards – Couples Therapist

Orderin.Ca

Creative Business Cards – Orderin.Ca

Accentuate

Creative Business Cards – Accentuate

The Photography of Nathan Jones

Creative Business Cards – The Photography of Nathan Jones

Reflections Dental Care

Creative Business Cards – Reflections Dental Care

Joanne Foltran

Creative Business Cards – Joanne Foltran

Blue Bird Design

Creative Business Cards – Blue Bird Design

Nation Builder Pop Up

Creative Business Cards – Nation Builder Pop Up

Edible Business Card – Head Hunter

Creative Business Cards – Edible Card – Headhunter

Chris Colhoun

Creative Business Cards – Chris Colhoun

Sandrine Abraham – Du Bout Des Yeux

Creative Business Cards – Sandrine Abraham – Du Bout Des Yeux

Corvus Design Studio

Creative Business Cards – Corvus Design Studio

Stretchable Personal Trainer Card

Creative Business Cards – Stretchable Personal Trainer Card

Impact Ideas

Creative Business Cards – Impact Ideas

DreamTen

Creative Business Cards – DreamTen

Chuck Tingley

Creative Business Cards – Chuck Tingley

Richard E. Smith Circles

Creative Business Cards – Richard E. Smith Circles

Artams

Creative Business Cards – Artams

Taste Chocolate

Creative Business Cards – Taste Chocolate

Retro Sports Inspired Business Cards

Creative Business Cards – Retro Sports Inspired Business Card

Blooming Designer

Creative Business Cards – Blooming Designer

Egil Paulson Easel Card

Creative Business Cards – Egil Paulson Easel Card

X3 Studios

Creative Business Cards – X3 Studios

Mineral Spring Water

Creative Business Cards – Mineral Spring Water

Dallas Laser Printing

Creative Business Cards – Dallas Laser Printing

Matilda Jane

Creative Business Cards – Matilda Jane

Becka Viau

Creative Business Cards – Becka Viau

Digitopolis

Creative Business Cards – Digitopolis

Mattson Creative

Creative Business Cards – Mattson Creative

Jared Andrew Schorr

Creative Business Cards – Jared Andrew Schorr

Emerson Taymor Pop Up

Creative Business Cards – Emerson Taymor Pop Up

Mark Ramadan

Creative Business Cards – Mark Ramadan

Genie Alisa

Creative Business Cards – Genie Alisa

Mix Tape Generation

Creative Business Cards – Mix Tape Generation

e Aqua

Creative Business Cards – e Aqua

Wedding Television

Creative Business Cards – Wedding Television

Colorburned

Creative Business Cards – Colorburned

Ben Webster

Creative Business Cards – Ben Webster

Max Steiner – Everyday Hero

Creative Business Cards – Max Steiner – Everyday Hero

The Alembic

Creative Business Cards – The Alembic

Tutorials

Making a Print-Ready Business Card Using Only Photoshop

Business Card Tutorial

Design a Print Ready Business Card for Designers

Business Card Tutorial

Making a grungy business card

Making a Grungy Business Card

Design an Abstract Business Card

Business Card Tutorial

Creating a new Web 2.0 Business Card

Creating a new Web 2.0 Business Card

More and more business people are looking to import business card information into their databases. So until bar-coding like QR Codes and Microsoft Tags become a standard feature on business cards, people are using some form of business card scanner with OCR technology.

Whether with an OCR mobile app (see below) or a flatbed scanner, OCR can drastically simplify the process of transferring contacts from paper to your contact management database.

But even the best OCR business card reader technology has limitations.

Cards with certain design features simply don’t scan well. And as scanning becomes more common, this is something that business card designers should keep in mind if they don’t want to use bar-coding. That contact was important enough for you to give your business card to; you need to make sure you make it easy for them to accurately add you to their contacts list.

So here are some helpful hints for creating a scannable business card.

Don’t:

• Use fancy fonts. These easily confuse OCR software, especially on letters like “c” and “e”. A clean font like Helvetica may seem boring, but it is easy for OCR to translate.
• Combine your name and title. Names and titles separated by a comma on a single line (such as “Nancy Nally, Editor”) don’t translate correctly in OCR.
• Overlay text on a pattern. This is too confusing for OCR.
• Angle text. Currently OCR scanning doesn’t translate text that isn’t parallel to the edges of the card.
• Mix orientations. Keep all the text oriented in the same direction.

Do:

• Keep it big. If you get squinty looking at your card, so will OCR software.
• Give text breathing room. Keep letters nicely spaced so that the OCR can distinguish them easily from each other.
• Keep it light. Cards with dark backgrounds seem impossible to scan (even those with high-contrast white text).
• Put your company name somewhere in text. OCR can’t translate stylised logos, so make sure the company’s name is in text somewhere too.
• Keep it on one side. Scanners only read one side of a card, so keep all the critical contact information on one side.

This last issue is a very common problem with many cards. Double-sided printing is becoming very “trendy” which creates the temptation to spread the critical contact information on both sides of the card, making it inaccessible to card reading technology.

Ideally, you should have contact information on only one side of the card, and then use the other side for a logo or mini sales brochure. Here at CQ we have the ability to print a different back on each card in a set, offering the ability to get very creative with a card back’s promotional uses. Meanwhile, the front of the card can hold all of the traditional contact information in a clean and simple (scannable) format.

Penny Shooter Business Card

How often do you look at a business card that someone gives you? The answer, suggests Rob Brown, author of How to Build Your Reputation and speaker on business networking, is four times at most. When they give it to you; when you return from where you met them and look at it (and others that you may have collected); when you decide to file it, scan it or bin it, and when you want to use it or pass it onto someone.

These days, with electronic media connecting us more and more, do we need business cards at all? LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all allow the exchange of information and contact details without the use of anything as antiquated as small pieces of card overprinted with ink.

But face-to-face meetings are what build trust — and trust, as the Nobel prize-winner Oliver Williamson has written, lowers transaction costs. Put another way, if you trust someone, you are more likely to do business with them. So meeting people is important. After you have met them, what remains? Your business card. Which, if it is only viewed four times, has to be as powerful as possible.

As Andy Green, the author of Effective Personal Communications, says: “Your business card is a vital part of your brand armoury. It has to do both an instant job in telling your new potential life-changing encounter about you, how you can make a difference, and ideally any future aspirations — and also be a legacy item, to live on without you, weeks, months and even years after the encounter.”

So what are the rules to follow if you want a successful business card — one that will convey your message and turn into a useful source of business? Opinions vary but the following sum up both the wisdom and experience of the experts.

1. Clarity of purpose

What do you want people to do with your card? The managing director of Dolce Vita, the online luxury magazine, does not have his telephone number on his card — just the website address, www.dolcemag.com. Why? Because he doesn’t want people calling him, he wants them to log on instead. Most importantly, make it clear what you do. “Your business card is often all people have left after meeting you. If it doesn’t scream out call me’ or refer me’ then why did you have it printed in the first place?” says Rob Brown.

 2. Use a photo

I shudder at this, not least because I hate photos of myself on anything and cannot imagine a time when I would agree to put them on my business card. Indeed, I confess that I would almost go as far as saying that it showed a distinct lack of class to do so. But Brown and Green are united in their support of this idea.
“You have your photo on your website,” says Brown, “so why not on your business cards?” Green goes further. “I also like the creative use of an ID photo on your card. Don’t be boring — one of my favourite examples, Paul Kerfoot of Bulletpoint Design, has half of his face on one side and the other half on the reverse side of the card.” If you are going to embrace this idea, get a decent photo.

3. Be Different

“Recall of you and your business is easier with more memorable hooks’ and images,” says Brown. “A good friend in business consultancy writes out all his cards personally on various high-quality pieces of card. Every card is therefore unique and memorable.”
Here, I heartily agree — I will always remember meeting William Whitehorn, now president of Virgin Galactic, back in the days when he ran all the PR for the Branson empire. Prominently on the card he gave me was the statement “white with one sugar”, which I take it is how he likes his tea or coffee. It made a big impression on me, and was clearly designed to break the ice.
Several years later, when I had bought my own company and we were redesigning our brand, I asked for all our cards to have something very personal on them that could also start a conversation. Now, each member of our team has a black-and-white professionally shot photograph on the reverse — no, not of themselves, but of an activity or object that they are very associated with. They vary from feet clad in ballet shoes, for a former dancer, to a set of football lights for someone who is passionate about the sport.
This illustrates another important maxim, namely to use the other side of the card. Green describes cards that stand out as “sticky” — “not literally, but make it memorable, so the impression you make sticks well beyond your encounter. I have a hole punched in my card (an idea suggested by my then 13-year-old daughter). The number of times I have had people subsequently say to me: I remember you. You’re the guy with the hole in his business card’.” One tip from me, though, is not to make it different by making it much larger than standard size — a pain in the neck to file.

4. Always, always carry your business cards…

Have some in your car, your handbag, your wallet, your briefcase, your pocket and a box of them on your desk to refill everything regularly. Never run out. I attend many black-tie events and hate carrying a bag, and so at one stage had a floor-length velvet evening gown made with a pocket under the hem the exact size of business cards to keep them in. “Always carry your card,” says Green. “You can have a networking encounter at the supermarket, picking up the children, in the unlikeliest of places.”
Your business card, says Brown, is a crucial tool in your business toolbox. “Like a great CV, a solid handshake, a compelling elevator speech and a nice suit, it helps to form a great impression of you that makes people want to call you, connect with you and engage you.”
And that from a man who is on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Business cards are not redundant. In a world full of information, they are more important than ever.

Digital print can connect to the world wide web with PURLS

Print can connect to mobile phones through TXT or SMS numbers and QR Codes

Now print can connect to your computer or mobile phone using a web or phone cam to create Augmented Reality

A “marker” on a printed page can be “read” by a webcam-enabled personal computer a bit like a barcode. A three-dimensional virtual object appears on the screen, suspended like a hologram over the image of the page.

Bring the square to life

1 If you have a computer with a webcam and Adobe Flash 9 or higher installed (and internet connection), click here. Your camera may work straight away. If so, skip to point 4.

2 Right-click (or Ctrl-click for Macs) on the large black square and select Settings.

3 Select the webcam tab and choose your camera from the list (if that does not work, try another from the list).

4 Show the camera the large black square in Friday’s Financial Times (or click here to print out the square). Adjust angle and distance until your screen displays a three-dimensional “augmented” image.

Car manufacturers such as BMW and Toyota have used the technique to show off their latest models. Paramount Pictures, the film distributor, used 3D graphics to publicise Transformers 2 and Star Trek.

On November 9th, Esquire Magazine is dedicating an entire issue to augmented reality http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality-coming-soon

As an aside, not everyone is excited by Esquires decision, as stated by BoSacks at PrintCEO.com http://printceo.com/2009/10/esquire-looks-to-energize-print

Now Jonas Jager from Toxin has taken augmented reality from an oh-cute! status to holy-frack-that’s-cool position. His business card will make the owner appear like a 3D hologram, displaying Twitter information in real time, plus all kinds of cool stuff.

Note the QR Code on his business card alongside the AR Marker.

Click on the picture to view the video.

Augmented Business Card from jonas on Vimeo.

Ask the other person to pick a sticker and stick it on the square (it says ‘place logo here’). This way, every card becomes unique!

http://news.cq.co.nz/news/adding-mobile/

In a nutshell CQ can generate and place a QR Code on your posters, business cards, flyers or WHATEVER, and anyone can read it using their mobile phone to record your contact details or go to a relevant page on your website.

In the promotional posters for Tim Burton’s new animated movie “9” one of the posters features a QR Code. Try it now and see the exclusive video on your mobile phone!

New Cool Print-to-Mobile Tools

Instead having people attempting to key in those long text messages or complex website addresses on their phone, we use the mobile phones’ built-in camera to do it all for them in seconds. i.e. The phone instantly captures specific instructions from a specially printed item. e.g.:

Just snap a photo of the barcode which then:

1. tells the Phone web browser to go directly to the product providers webpage for more information, even to buy the product or
2. prepares the phone to email or forward a special message on, with a link back to the suppliers web page with a special offer or
3. simply tells the phone to just save the details into it’s built-in address book or perhaps use the message as a discount voucher.

All this could be very handy if say you see a promotion on a magazine ad, website page, on a building, even street, realty or bus sign, and don’t have time to take down all the details. Now you’d just snap a photo of it and the special QR barcode (click photo left).

This provides the information for the phone to do its special ‘thing’, like sending you to the corresponding website on that product or property, or translating it into readable text. This will take off this year as people upgrade to 3G Phones.

N.B. Many Vodafone users here with a good camera phone may already have this QR capability and don’t realise it. Simply TXT QR to 710 to find out. They will text back a link to download the correct QR Code reader, for free.  (Details click here)

As discovered overseas, QR Codes in printed signs, cards or flyers is a great way to connect with a youth market that’s notoriously difficult to reach – not just because it offers something new and different for them to interact with, but also because it generates a lot of street buzz.

Why Wait? Simply call us to discuss adding your personal QR code to your next brochure, poster or business card .

Looking for more neat QR code ideas? View the videos below:

Experienced sales reps know how important it is to make a good first impression on their prospects. They buy nice clothes, drive nice cars, and wine and dine prospects and clients – only to give them a cheap business card? Why not consider a premium grade card on the best card stock that would really wow a customer and add to the overall good impression?

1. Feature your company brand, website address and name prominently. For established companies, the logo is important too, because it will help people associate your name with the product or service you are selling. In some industries, a photo of yourself helps too.
2. Don’t take up too much space listing all the ways you can be contacted. It’s best to list just your phone, website and email address. Personal cell phone numbers should be given to the client verbally, only when necessary and fax numbers are largely superfluous in our internet world.
3. Full-colour printing with photos adds a dramatic impact to the look of your business card. Other classy touches like silk card stock and corner-cutting also allow you to really stand out from the crowd.
4. Don’t overlook the backside of your card. It is a great place to add more sales and marketing information, a map and location, or photos of your products, mini calendar or area for ‘next appointment’ details.
5. It’s worth the time! Business cards and other ‘pocketable’ items are one of the most important tools for growing business today. The time and effort you spend creating and printing excellent business cards will pay future dividends.