David Airey, world-renowned consultant and designer, has published on his blog examples of his first business card. In this case, he’s embodying the mantra I very much follow, which is that progress is the ability to look back at yourself and ask “what the hell was I thinking?”.

I don’t actually think this card is so bad. But maybe as designers we hold ourselves to a higher standard. Y’all don’t want me to bust out my first card for Diving Tank Studios. Ugh, that was bad.

via David Airey »

I’m mad that CBS News didn’t call me.

I think we can all agree that the first rule of business cards is that the name of the business should be totally unambiguous. World Wide or World Wise? Or are we secretly implying that we are wise, but only as a secret attribute.

This is a strange card indeed. Check out all the annotations in those wavy captions. Peace and Love. And I’m really not sure why the two phone numbers are punctuated differently. Makes the second number seem less like a phone number and more like a secret code to be entered at the critical moment. To defuse a bomb, perhaps.

Yikes.

A submission from Barry Hott. You can submit yours too.

Here’s an early card for Google’s Co-Founder Larry Page. Looks like a homemade job, evidence in those perforated edges and the bleeding ink that comes about from uncoated paper through a late-90s inkjet. At the time, they didn’t have the budget, so I’m going to assume that Larry has a better card these days.

Also, peep the original Google logo. Yikes.

If you’ll remember, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about Google cards

via Dooby Brain »

But man, I was disappointed to see her card. Printed on something only a step up from copy paper, the card features thermography, and sets the type curiously low and dangerously close to the trim edge. I honestly don’t understand how this card got approved — didn’t someone say “hang on, it’s about to get cut off!”. I can’t tell if the green is the proper Pantone spot colour, but it seems like a wasted opportunity to have a sharp print with a spot UV, or something. Presently, it looks blotchy and non-continuous, which is just a shame.

Normally, this isn’t that big a deal. Large corporations have sucky cards. But with H&R Block, the brand values are attention to detail, thoroughness, and precision — all qualities that are honourable in accounting and tax calculations. But with a card like this, I have to wonder what else is lurking beneath the hood.

Her first card is actually rather eye-catching — a $20 bill — to indicate that we get money to recommend her firm. Pretty straightforward, if you think about it. This brings up a point, though, about how US currency is actually a better bit of design than the card itself, but let’s not go there.

It does, after all, seem appropriate for a tip calculator chart to be included on the back of the card. Accountants are all about correct amounts. But let’s not bring up the abundance of tip-calculator applications on smart phones.

Sadly, her regular card is pretty sucky. Typical small business America, I suppose. Now I wonder if she’ll accept new business cards as payment for my tax return next year …

An electronics engineer whose business card is not only an actual circuit board, but it’s a USB thumb drive. Useful, yet bulky. I’m afraid this isn’t the first one of these I’ve seen, and thus, I’m not terribly impressed.

Bold, though, because this has to cost a pretty penny.

You’d think that the staff at the Staples Copy & Print Shop would have better cards! I mean, they are in the biz, are they not?

Both cards pictured are plagued with bad typography, colour inconsistency, bizarre thermography patterns, and pathetically thin card stock that feels entirely wimpy in hand. Also, two people from the same store don’t even have the same card. What’s going on here? Total fail.

East of eighth is a restaurant on 23rd St., just east of 8th Ave., in New York City. Good food, bad card.

The photo doesn’t tell the entire story (in part because my camera sucks) but the entire card is printed with thermography! Ouch. Not a fan of the typography, either.

When walking on the streets of New York, I am handed a variety of promotional and advertising crap. Flyers, coupons, free samples are all common. But the other day I actually accepted the hand-to-hand transfer because I could see from afar that it was, in fact, a business card being slung my way. The card: One Free Tan.

My first reaction was positive. From the front of the card (above) it appears to be some sort of cutting-edge fashion brand. The juxtaposition of old-world plaid prints with paint splatter gives it a fresh, urban feel. I dig it.

And then I flip it over.

Jeez, the back is such a let down. This is where the card turns into the old-fashion promotional garbage. The layout and colour choices are just awful — so much so that I still haven’t actually read it.

Here are the cards for selve, a custom footwear company. I am featuring these firstly for their cheeky strapline, “Munich, London, and now Red Bank, NJ!” Um, I hope that you’re embracing the randomness of your own company, because if this is done is serious, I am surely confused. Red Bank, for all it’s merits, is not an international fashion hub.

Second, these are just a mess from a technical point of view. While it may appear to be one-colour, it’s actually done with 4-colour process. Elementary printing knowledge will demonstrate that you can’t effectively knock out text from a field of a process colour. It will look blurry. And it’s made worse when you have that ultralight text. So if you’re going to design a card that is, essentially, a single colour, buck up and get the spot, or just use Black.

There’s also a crappy lo-res photograph, but that doesn’t come across well in my own crappy lo-res photo.

*sigh*

Junior is a website “celebrating life at the bottom” [of the advertising profession]. The card is playful, but loses points for being out of register on the front. I guess they’re still learning the ropes of print production…

Please tell me I am not the only one who feels a burning, infernal hatred for those blasted stick-of-gum half-cards that are all the rage the days. Moo.com has made them popular among the internet-savvy new media set, much to my chagrin.

The backs are customisable, which is nice. But you don’t need a fancy slim card for that.

The arguments for them are always rather superficial: “they’re cute” or “they’re smaller, and more convenient” seem to escape the lips rather quickly. But in my opinion, their size is a disadvantage, making them easier to lose. In addition, they fall to the bottom of wallet slots and business card holders, forcing me to retrieve them later at a much less convenient time. And strangely, they’re not half a card, but rather some odd fraction that hasn’t yet made sense to me.

In conclusion, if you hand me one of these, I will tell you how much I hate them. We can still be friends, though.

A navy blue felt card with gold foil stamping could be appropriate for some sorts of businesses, but I don’t think anything so lusty is warranted for a restaurant. Bad type and layout make it unwarranted for pretty much anything, though.

Close-up of the craziness.