Elegant Business Card Design Tips
Posted on February 15, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Networking is the bread and butter of connecting with potential new clients; it’s one of the quickest and most effective ways to build up your contacts. Having a quality business card and giving it out to your new contacts can be the perfect finishing touch, but most people don’t know where to start on creating their own business card.
Elegant business card design tips are few and far between online, so we decided to create this article to give you all the information you need in one place to get started on your own business card design.
This article will take you through all of the steps from:
- Keeping your business card minimal
- How to leverage social
- Building your brand into your business card
- And much more
Tie back your hair, and hold onto your hat, let’s get started!
Why Are These Elegant Business Card Design Tips Important?
First impressions last, and in-person meetings can be a really powerful way to get new clients or new contacts for your industry. Research also shows that closing rates for in-person meetings are 40%, with that in mind having a great business card design can really help to improve your odds of closing.
Our Top 7 Elegant Business Card Design Tips
To help you get the best elegant business card design tips, we’ve broken down our seven favorite ways to get the most out of your business card designs.
1. Keeping It Minimal
Stripped back business cards are the big trend for 2018. Don’t tempt yourself to bombard your card with a mountain of information but the problem with that, as with anything, is information overload.
You want to be thinking about your brand message and what you want to say. Remember because you’ll have given the person the business card in person, they will already know what you’re about and what you do, you don’t need to repeat that here.
Think of your business card as a call-to-action; you want the person you’re giving the card, to take action.
What action do you want them to take?
It may depend on what kind of person you’re giving the card to which leads us to our second elegant business card design tips.
2. Have Different Designs for Different People
There are some incredible designs of business cards out their online which can give you some real ideas on what to design your card like. It’s important to remember though that you may need a different message depending on the person you are giving the business card too.
Our second elegant business card design tips focus on designing different cards for different reasons. You may want to build a design for customers that showcases your brand’s identity and gets them to your website.
A design for a supplier or marketing firm may be more business-like in design, and you can focus on what value you can provide them.
Think about what value your business card can present for the person you’ll give it out too.
3. Using Social Media Effectively
Everybody these days is on every social media platform, right?
Do you want the person receiving your business card to hit you up on all social platforms or just one?
What would be the most relevant platform for the type of person you’ll be giving this business card to. Try to remember that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all.
You may want to showcase your brand identity to customers through a visual social platform like Pinterest or Instagram, whereas a someone you’d like to work with may be better of connecting through Linked-in a more professional network where they can easily see your past achievements and work background.
4. Reinforcing Your Brand
When you’re handing out your business card, you want it to tie in with your brand, so that people can get a snapshot of what your business is about. If this theme then carries onto your website and social platforms, it begins to build a familiarity.
Here are some awesome examples of logo designs for a financial institute for some inspiration of amazing branding. You can even go as far to make your logo or brand image the full size of the business card, with your details on the flip side.
5. Decide on What Concept to Follow
Turning your brand values into a business card is an incredible way to build familiarity with the person you’re giving your business card too. Deciding on what concept to follow is a good idea when considering which elegant business card design tips to follow.
By thinking about the customer you’re trying to impress, you can build a story around what you want them to follow.
6. Decide on Your Specs
Remember you can’t get started without knowing where to start logistically. It’s a good idea to get an idea of what specification to follow so you know what’s important to you and your budget.
The size of your business card can vary, and the most common business cards are 84mm by 55mm. You can go bigger, but if you do, the person you give the card to is less likely to keep it and won’t fit into a wallet as easily, the go-to place for most business cards.
You can go smaller to make your card stand out, but remember a non-traditional size is going to cost you more money. Tank Prints have a site that lets you design the cards the way you want them and are a great example of how to design your specification differently.
It’s also good to think about the orientation, will your design be landscape or portrait. Portrait designs have been up and coming in the last few years and can make your card design stand out, but it can be harder to read in a cardholder.
7. Think About the Material
Most business cards are paper, but you do have other options. This is one of our favorite elegant business card design tips as it can really make you stand out from the crowd.
You can choose your card to be plastic, wood, metal, and slate. If you go with paper, you’ll need to think about thickness, coating, color and weight. All of these can affect the price.
Time to Use Our Seven Best Elegant Business Card Design Tips
Now you’ve got the info; it’s time to take charge! Stand out from the crowd and make a big impact on your audience. For more tips on how to get the most out of your business card designs, head over to our blog.
Put on Your Thinking Cap: Brainstorming an Academic or Education Logo Design
Posted on January 30, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
What’s the first thing you think of when it comes to education logo design? It is a pencil, graduation cap, or a book?
On average, people are exposed to 5000 marketing messages every day. Your logo can be one of them.
How can your educational business or institution’s logo cut through the noise and stand out? It will take creativity and an understanding of how logos work. It also takes a little bit of brainstorming.
Here are tips to help you brainstorm ideas for your education logo.
What Does Your Institution Do?
The first step in education logo design is to get to the heart of what it is you want people to know about your institution.
A logo needs to convey a message, which people can easily interpret on a subconscious level. Your message should be an emotion that people can easily relate to. That’s what’s known as your brand promise.
Perhaps your business is focused on language education, or it’s a fun place where kids can learn. On the other hand, your institution can be more traditional and focus on character development, knowledge, and wisdom.
These questions will help you flesh out your brand promise:
- What do we believe in as an institution?
- What do our competitors promise their clients?
- What are the values of this institution?
- What do we want out students to achieve while they are with us and beyond?
These questions seem simple on the surface, but they will ignite a lengthy discussion to answer them effectively. Once you nail these, it’s much easier to create your logo and other marketing messages.
After learning what your brand stands for, it becomes easier to choose the right elements in your education logo design to convey that.
Elements of a Logo
Your logo communicates a message. How that message is communicated depends on the elements you choose in your design. Each element has an impact and influence on how your logo is interpreted.
Symbols
Symbols in a logo are intended to draw a reference point for someone viewing the logo. That’s why you see so many education logo designs with pencils, books, and graduation caps.
One organization with a logo that stands out for their use of symbolism is Honor Society. That logo features an upright torch flanked by olive branches. The torch symbolizes hope, life, enlightenment, and truth.
Those are honorable qualities that they want their members to embody.
Text
You may decide to have your business name or tagline in your logo. The font you use in your logo can communicate a lot.
Have you heard of serif and sans-serif fonts?
Serif fonts are old, traditional typefaces that have been used since the advent of the printing press. These fonts have flags or tags on the letters. They convey reliability, dependability, and respectability.
They’re also neutral fonts, meaning that they can be used in most applications
Sans serif fonts don’t have the traditional tags on the letters. They tend to have a modern or futuristic look that conveys simplicity.
Colors
Colors also have a psychological impact. That’s why you see green for money related logos, or blue for traditional companies. You’ll see red and green logos around the holidays. Colors hold special meaning for people.
For example, brown symbolizes earth. You’ll see it commonly used for environmental companies. Dark blue symbolizes knowledge and yellow symbolize philosophy.
How many education logos have you seen with these two colors?
Each of these elements works individually and in unison to have an impact on the person viewing the logo.
Education Logo Design Tips
There is a lot to consider when it comes to education logo design. With a good understanding as to how your message and visuals work together, you can create an amazing logo. You’ll also need to keep these tips in mind.
Put Your Designs on Paper
The most important thing to remember about logo design is that you don’t have to get it right the first time. In the brainstorming phase, there is no such thing as a bad idea. Put everything down on paper, then decide if there’s an idea that’s worth pursuing further.
Research Competitors
You’re going to put in a lot of thought, time, and effort into your logo. You certainly don’t want to have a finished product that looks a lot like a competitor’s logo.
That’s why you need to know what your competitors’ brand and logos are in the early stages of the design process.
Scale Your Design
As you’re designing your logo, keep in mind the different ways it will be used. Will it be used on banners, t-shirts, pens, letterhead, and building signs?
You’re going to need to make sure your logo looks good no matter where it appears. You can do that by deciding to use just a symbol in some applications or scale it to size in others.
Keep Your Design Simple
As you probably discovered when you were learning about your brand promise, there’s a lot that you want to covey in your logo.
Simplicity is a very elegant form of design. Keep your design clean and simple. It will stand out much more than a busy design.
Test Your Ideas
Good design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It takes feedback, learning, and tweaking to get it right. When you’re at a point where you have a few good designs, take them public and test them out.
You can ask your employees and customers individually or you can do a social media survey.
When you ask people for their opinion, ask them which design they like better and why. You want to be sure that the logo they like conveys the message intended.
Education Logo Design Is Easy
Now that you know what goes into education logo design, it’s time to get to work.
There are a couple of ways to design a logo. You can sketch ideas on paper, use a complicated graphics program, or you can use Online Logo Maker.
Online Logo Maker is an easy-to-use tool that has the images and fonts you need to create a fantastic education logo. If you’ve already done your homework and you know your marketing message, you can design your logo in 10 minutes.
Click here to get started.
5 Marshmallow Logo Ideas for Your Camping Business
Posted on January 26, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Do you want to add a marshmallow logo to your camping company?
It’s a clever play on the image of sitting around the campfire while camping, and it can evoke many memories for people.
The camping industry continues to grow with over 3 million new families starting to camp each year since 2014.
That’s a lot of new opportunity to grow your business and reach new audiences. You want to make the right first impression, and it’s important to have a logo that will do just that.
If you’re looking to use a marshmallow in your camping logo, keep reading for five marshmallow logo ideas.
What Does Your Brand Stand For?
There’s a lot of thought that goes into a logo. It’s an important part of your marketing message. It’s so important, large companies have been known to spend millions of dollars just to design a logo.
You may not have that kind of budget, but you can take a similar approach to logo design.
The purpose of the logo is to create an emotional response that connects the buyer to your camping business. You need to get a good idea as to how you want people to think about your business.
The main thing that you want to focus on is who you are designing the logo for. In other words, who is your target audience?
Let’s say you target luxury campers. The fonts, colors, and images are going to need to be modern and sleek to make the connection with that audience.
If you target families, you’ll want to have something that’s more fun and child-like.
You also need to understand what your company stands for. Is your business environmentally friendly? Is it a fun company?
This is important to know because certain colors and fonts have common emotional responses. You want to match the logo with the emotional response you want to create.
What to Think About When Designing a Camping Logo
When you’re designing a logo, you want to make sure you get elements just right.
Whether you’re a camping business or an office equipment company, the core of what makes a good logo is the same.
- Color
- Text
- Message
- Symbols
Each element conveys a message. They work in unison to create one message for your business.
Now that you know what it takes to create a logo that aligns with your business, it’s time to give your logo a personality.
Check out these five ideas for a marshmallow logo.
1. Happy Marshmallow
Camping makes people happy.
The reasons why are varied, but a recent study showed that being disconnected from technology and being out in nature contributes to a better sense of wellbeing.
Add to that the bonds forged with people they’re camping with that create memories that last a lifetime.
How can you create those emotions with your marshmallow logo?
Try making a happy marshmallow. One example is to create an abstract marshmallow and put a big happy face on it.
2. Burning Marshmallow
Not everyone responds to campfires the same way, but many people love the smell and sight of a campfire because it evokes great memories.
There’s something about sitting around a campfire that people love. It’s time to bond, connect and roast marshmallows.
Men also tend to have a primal response to fire. It provided our ancestors with warmth and safety when they were hunter-gatherers.
If your camping business targets men or hunters, consider using a marshmallow roasting over a fire to evoke that primal response.
3. Glamping Marshmallow
Luxury camping has taken off in the last few years. That’s because more and more people are deciding to go on a staycation rather than travel to other countries.
For people that are on staycation and don’t want to ‘rough it’ luxury camping is a great option. It’s become a camping trend all over the world, from California to Italy.
Don’t take our word for it, check out these camping options in Europe on Campsited.
So, how can you incorporate a marshmallow into your camping logo?
If you have an Airstream camping site, you can have a marshmallow that looks like a person just outside of the Airstream.
Another way is to have a marshmallow lounging in a hammock. That can show that your campground is a place to relax, unwind and have fun.
4. Smores, Please!!
You could evoke the homey goodness of a gooey marshmallow s’more dripping throughout your logo.
If you’re targeting parents or older campers who have grown up camping, this can be a great option for a marshmallow logo.
The older people get, the more nostalgic they get.
A logo with a gooey s’more can make people think about the fun they’ve had camping before. If it’s done right, you can have a logo that makes the connection between the wonderful childhood memories of camping and your business.
5. Marshmallow Family
Is your camping business targeted towards families? Then you’re going to want to show that in your logo.
Many families go camping together as a way to connect, recharge and have quality time together.
How can you show that your camping business works with families?
You can get as creative as you like. You can have a marshmallow family around a campfire with a tent in the background.
You can also use your business name and have an outline of a family in the logo.
If you want to get a little cheeky, you could have a marshmallow family just like the popular stickers you see on minivans. That shows that you have a sense of humor and you like to poke fun at popular culture.
Build Your Own Marshmallow Logo
There’s more to creating a camping logo than throwing a marshmallow in front of a fire.
You have to think about your business, your brand, and your target audience. That will make sure your logo looks sharp, is consistent with your business, and you have something that people will positively respond to.
Now that you know how to build a brand and what goes into creating a logo, it’s time to get to it.
Creating your own marshmallow logo can be as easy as roasting s’mores. Just use OnlineLogoMaker. The logo maker has images and templates that you can customize.
You can have your logo done in as little as 10 minutes.
Take this brief tutorial and create your logo today.
5 Gambling Logo Mistakes You’re Making
Posted on January 15, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
It’s time to design a new gambling logo. You might have some ideas in mind, but you may not be sure how to bring them all together.
Every day, we see about 5,000 logos. You want yours to be remembered for the right reasons, not because you made some critical mistakes along the way.
How do you make yours stand out from the thousands of logos and be remembered for the right reasons?
You start by knowing what mistakes you need to avoid when designing your logo. Read on for the top 5 mistakes you need to avoid to make your gambling logo stand out from the crowd.
What a Logo Is, and What It Isn’t
How important is a logo for your business? A logo is often the first impression you get of a business. It’s what people see first on a brochure, website or business card.
It then takes someone 10 seconds to form a first impression of your business by looking at your logo.
How can you create a unique gambling logo? Let’s start by going over what a logo is and isn’t.
A logo is:
- A visual representation of your brand
- Carefully researched and thought out
A logo is not:
- Just a couple of cool images put together
- To be taken lightly
- Your brand
What’s the difference between a logo and a brand? A brand is what your company stands for. It’s the values, name, customer service, company culture and everything that your business embodies.
Your logo is all of that wrapped up in a neat image that creates an emotional connection between your customers and your brand.
Mistake #1: No Planning or Research into the Logo
Plenty of gambling businesses create logos by slapping a few images together with the company name and think it looks cool, so they go to print it.
What they don’t realize is that just because it looks cool, the message of what the company is about isn’t there.
While a logo may look good to you, it may not connect with your customers, your employees, or anyone else. That’s why it’s necessary to plan your logo out before considering colors and fonts.
You’ll need to consider your target market, competition, and the first thing you want people to know about your business.
Also, ask yourself the following questions:
- What makes your company stand out from your competition?
- What are your company’s strengths?
- How do your customers think about your company? Is there anything you’d like to change?
- How do you talk about your business to someone for the first time?
By answering these questions, you’ll have the attributes of your company and the core of what you want your logo to say about your company.
Mistake #2: Your Logo Is an Instructional Drawing
If you’re creating a gambling logo, does it have to have someone standing at a slot machine for people to know what your company does?
Absolutely not.
You want your logo to be simple and memorable. You don’t have to be completely obvious when designing it.
For example, a logo for a boot company doesn’t have to have a boot in it, and a logo for a gambling business doesn’t have to have a stack of chips, or a slot machine or obvious imagery.
The logo isn’t there to tell people what you do. That’s why you have your website. It’s there to tell them about who your company is.
If your company targets men, then you should use colors like brown or blue in your logo to make that psychological connection.
Take a look at this blog post about understanding the tote at Betting Gods. First of all, their name is awesome. If you’re a bettor, odds are you’ve prayed the betting gods before.
Secondly, take a look at the logo. It’s colorful, creative and plays in its name. You know what the company does, and it’s a company that has a sense of humor.
Mistake #3: Logo Isn’t Scaled for Different Uses
Another common mistake you see is that the logo is designed with only one use in mind, usually for a website.
Always consider the different uses of your logo. Will it be used on t-shirts, brochures, letterhead, and your website?
These are vastly different uses and you want to be sure that your logo looks good in every instance.
Not taking this into consideration can result in having a logo that’s pixelated and looks poor.
That’s not the first impression you want to make.
Be sure to test your logo out in different environments before you settle on a final design.
Mistake #4: Your Gambling Logo Looks like Other Logos
There’s a difference between inspiration and copying someone’s logo outright.
You can find inspiration in different logos and adopt a typeface or a color, as long as it’s not trademarked.
However, if you copy someone’s logo outright, you’ll only confuse people. That also won’t reflect well on your company. You’ll look lazy or you’re trying to piggyback on someone else’s success.
Mistake #5: Your Logo Is Busy
Yes, there is a lot you want to convey in a logo. That does not give you license to pack as much information into your logo as possible.
Remember to keep it simple.
A major mistake people make when designing a logo is that they use too many fonts, and colors. They also try to do too much with it by having too many images.
Your best bet is to stick to one or two typefaces and a single image. You can decide to just have your name as the logo and use a single typeface like Betting Gods.
Make Your Gambling Logo Stand Out
Are you ready to design your gambling logo? After you’ve done your research and you have a few sketches to work with, you can start designing your logo.
OnlineLogoMaker.com is here to make your design process easy, even if you don’t have a design degree. There are countless templates, images, and fonts for you to design a high-quality logo without much hassle.
You can save your image and download it using a free or premium account.
Start designing your logo today.