thinkitcreative

The modern-day business card is carry-over from the Industrial Revolution. It once was a tool to communicate status. Later, it became one of very few ways—other than the phone directory—to help people know how to reach you. Things don’t work that way anymore. It’s not hard to find someone’s contact information anymore. What is difficult today is finding the right tools to attract and sustain someone’s attention—to be memorable.

Your business card communicates an experience to your audience.

Some don’t believe in them anymore. I still do. I believe that little things count for a lot.

The information your card contains and how it is presented instantly defines the way your audience perceives you, along with what you have to say and what you are selling.

Even with something as simple as a business card, when you design with your customer in mind, you’re creating a powerful suggestion about how you work and of how you can help people.

Taking the time to ensure your business card delivers a great experience isn’t all that hard to do. Let me share with you what I’ve learned…

Print on the best stock you can find.
This is the number-one thing you must do. Buy the very best paper stock you can. Print in smaller batches if you have to. Good stock looks professional and avoids the frayed, dog-eared look that afflicts so many flimsy cards. Personally, I’m quite happy with the stock they use at moo.com.

Avoid glossy finishes, but ensure white space.
There’s a practical reason why you should say no to glossy and yes to generous use of white space. Business cards can be really handy to write on. Don’t underestimate this benefit. A short note jotted down on the back of your card can do amazing things. It’s one of the subtle ways that something mass produced can become personalized. People like things that are made just for them.

Don’t be clever at the expense of being useful.
Look online and you’ll find lots of examples of clever business cards. Some of them are even useful. But many are just wasted expressions of vanity. What am I going to do with an all-steel embossed card that’s impossible to read in low light and that I can’t write on? I mean really.

Be selective.
Most people today are drowning in too much information. Make it easier for them to reach you by being selective about what you include on your card. If phone, email and your website are the top-three places people go to reach you, then include just that. Unless you’re in a business that predominantly uses fax (and you have my sympathies if you are), then cut that from your card. There’s no penalty for leaving some things out. Keep it simple. We’re not living in the 1970s anymore. There are other places people can go to find additional information about you if they need it.

Include a photo, but only pro-grade.
Since all business is personal and so much of marketing today is relationship-based, including a professionally-shot photo of yourself on your card is never a bad idea. But do this only if the photo is a professional headshot.

Short and sweet.
The life of the modern business card is short and sweet. Gone are the days when the cards you give to people would be tucked into a rolodex and used repeatedly when someone wanted to call you. Most people today aren’t going to keep your card for very long: just until they can enter it into their address book or CRM. Keep your card simple, purposeful and memorable: that’s what sells. Complement it with other products to serve as leave-behinds that can deliver substance: free ebooks, guides and reports are just a few examples.

Think about the reader’s experience.
Focus less on what matters to you and instead ask what creates the best experience for the person who receives your card. Remember: the more information you put on that 3.5 x 2 inch piece of paper, the smaller the typeface you’ll need, and the less white space you’ll have.

About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing digital content for the web. Follow him on twitter here.

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With his usual aplomb, Marco Arment’s sage advice on design applies as much to platforms as it does to other products.

Good design is what you’re left with after you’ve said “no” to a lot of things.

How to bring good design to a platform

1. Demonstrate from the top that high quality and attention to detail are prioritized and appreciated above everything else, including being the first to market, having the most features, or having the most aggressive prices. If you can get those as well, that’s great, but quality will not be sacrificed to do so.
2. Instill these values in your staff. If you can’t, hire a staff for which you can. Better yet, hire a staff for which you don’t need to.
3. Aggressively pursue simplification, elegance, craftsmanship, and the highest-class user experiences in the product line. Ruthlessly cut or hold features or entire products that aren’t good enough.
4. Make it pretty.

How not to bring good design to a platform

1. Skip steps 1–3 above.

About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing digital content for the web. Follow him on twitter here.

CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.

1. Your Powerpoint or other slideware material shouldn’t compete with your presentation. Sounds obvious, right? But anyone who has had to squint to read all the copy on crammed onto dozens of slides in a presentation knows this mistake is still a common one.

2. When sharing data-based information with your audience, don’t just report on numbers. Explain the meaning behind numbers. Infographics and tastefully designed charts make a major impression and enlighten…in seconds.

3. Don’t cram your logo onto every slide. Ignore those who tell you that this age-old practice is all part of branding. It’s not. In a presentation, it’s just clutter. You’re on stage speaking directly to people. They know who you are already. What they don’t know yet is whether what you have to say is useful to them. That should be your #1 point of focus.

4. White space is your friend. Your audience will appreciate it more if you have more slides with less content on each page than just a few that are jam-packed and hard to read.

5. Always remember one of thinkit creative’s top rules about writing that sells: people are busy. You have less time than you think to attract and sustain the attention of your audience. So invest wisely in fine-tuning the design that drives your slides as well as the content that connects the value of who you are what you do with the needs of the people listening to what you have to say.

About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing digital content for the web. Follow him on twitter here.

CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.

The evidence is everywhere. We are entering a new era in design.

Today—more than at any other point in human history—more thought goes into the construction of things around us. That’s a development that has implications for everyone in the business of marketing to other people. In other words, everyone.

Today, design is about more than creating objects of beauty. It’s about creating ideas that are memorable, or an approach that strikes an emotional chord with people. It’s also about having better tools to understand and filter a world that’s cluttered with messages. Just as important, it’s about finding the right methods to execute those great ideas, approaches and tools.

You see it in consumer products that have a fit and finish once reserved for high-end scientific equipment. You see it in the way that some businesses set an example for others in the market by saying that consumer experience matters to them ahead of just selling more stuff.

You see it in self-published ebooks: an industry that once required a publishing firm just to get your foot in the door. You see it in the array of consumer apps developed for mobile users. You also see it in consumer signage that you see every day. Whereas we used to see material printed on paper and updated on a fairly slow cycle, today a lot of signage is being switched to LED and LCD monitors—products that cost a fraction of what they used to and that can be updated and tweaked regularly without incurring many of the expenses that saddled conventional marketing.

Design today is the sum of a million little things that, when added together, become something that connects with people on a deep, meaningful level. That doesn’t just mean that you need great visuals and colours that match. It means that visual elements and the written word have to bond closer than ever before so that audiences connect, understand and respond.

As a result, professionals who are skilled in design, strategy and content matter a lot. They can help you make better choices on developing your products, services and ideas so that messages are clear and purposeful. Just as important, they can show you through field-tested experience the right approaches to presenting those products, services or ideas.

They are brokers in good taste: and that’s something every business can benefit from having more of.

About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing digital content for the web. Follow him on twitter here.

CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.

Linked via kottke, a short movie on the history of title design in film. Succinct text, a well-chosen typeface and arresting visuals can tell a really compelling story. And that’s true of more media than just film.

I love that this clip closes with Enter The Void, which to my mind is the most outstanding title sequence in many, many years.

A Brief History of Title Design from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.

About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing digital content for the web. Follow him on twitter here.

CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.

As a professional writer, I’m a creature of habit and so when I find a business tool that I really like, I tend to stick with it. Case in point: notebooks for scribbling and general note taking. I buy myself a new one every year. I suppose I could just settle on whatever is on sale at my local office supply store, but I’m stuck on Moleskine‘s lined notebooks.

This is a brand that has a earned a huge following over the last decade, particularly online. There’s lots to love about these notebooks: great binding on a solid spine, a handy elastic band that helps keep the book closed even when you jam a pen in between the pages, a hidden inside pocket for storing business cards, and a red tasseled bookmark glued into the centre of the binding.

All very old school.

But Moleskine doesn’t stop there.

This is where things get interesting from a marketer’s perspective.

It’s only after you’ve made the decision to buy one of these notebooks…only after you’ve brought it home and released it from its cellophane packaging…that you notice the following little note inserted between its covers:

Moleskine is the heir of the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. This trusty, pocket-sized travel companion held their sketches, notes, stories, and ideas before they became famous images or beloved books. The little black notebook, with its typical rounded corners, elastic closure, and expandable inner pocket, was originally a nameless object. It was produced by a small French bookbinder, that supplied Parisian stationery shops frequented by the international literary and artistic avant-garde for more than a century.

Now that’s some gorgeous prose! Moleskine could have just as easily opted to take that note and slap it over top the cellophane packaging, sticker-style. Instead, someone made a decision to print it on nice paper and tuck it away—a surprise that reveals itself only after you start using the product.

So why do you suppose they went to all this trouble of adding this little note on the inside of the product?

For one thing, it shows that the good folks at Moleskine have a solid understanding of who buys their product and of what those customers hope to use it for. Creatives like to be around things that blow on the embers of inspiration. Not a lot. Just enough. This little note serves as a nudge to its owner, saying “you can do this.” It strikes an emotional chord. And does so at the right time.

It’s also a nice, old fashioned touch, which is inline with the book maker’s product and how they differentiate themselves from lower-priced alternatives. What makes that particularly interesting is how effective Moleskine has been in cementing that perception…despite the fact that the company only been around since 1997.

There’s another motive behind the clever extra detail of including that little note. It reaffirms in the mind of the buyer that they made the right choice buying this product. And it reminds them again and again each time they crack open a fresh notebook. Not in a pushy-salesy kind of way. Rather, just a little friendly reminder why you chose this product.

A few other companies who use this technique:

Most of their competitors don’t do this. And that’s another reason why they do.

Little details get noticed. They’re often unexpected and they communicate a sense of craft. As a result, they tend to be the things that leave the best, longest-lasting impression in the minds of your customers.

(photo: Moleskine)

About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing digital content for the web. Follow him on twitter here.

CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.

You may have noticed that we’ve refreshed the portfolio icons located on the right-hand side of every page of our website. Many of the new ones were designed by the amazingly talented digital artist, Tatyana Suhodolska, whose hard work definitely deserves praise and attention.

Be sure to check out her work today.

This is brilliant. And it even manages to sneak in a joke at the expense of the much-ridiculed Comic Sans.

Be sure to zoom-in on the image or you’ll be missing out on half the fun.