How to Choose the Best Business Card for Your Company

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How to Choose the Best Business Card for Your Company: Avoid Style Taboos

The same way you wouldn't walk into an important meeting with your shirt untucked and your tie askew, you should make sure to avoid grievous style faux pas in your business card's design. Here are some aesthetic choices to avoid:

•    Don't be Cheap – "I will not do business with anyone who has a business card that says 'printed free by Vistaprint,'" Ross-Parker says. It looks unprofessional if you're not willing to invest anything in making a good impression.

•    Being Unoriginal – Even if you don't have a fat wad of cash to spend on your business card you shouldn't get a template because it's less memorable and less effective.

•    Don't go for Shock Value – "I've seen business cards that  really are like shock value business cards," Kahan says. "I used to do street theater and the first thing that you have to do when you do street theater is you have to get somebody who's on their way somewhere else to stop and look at you. The easiest way to do that is to just do something really bizarre. That will work, people will stop and look at you, but if what you want is engagement, and if what you want is follow-up, then there's a different set of rules that you have to follow."

•    Don't Laminate It – A surface that the recipient of the card can write on makes it easier for them to take notes on your meeting to help remember it.

•    Don't Overcrowd It – Some people get business cards that fold out just so they can squeeze some extra information on the card but you're better served by keeping it simple. "I don't like when it's so busy that people are trying to get all the information all in one place at one time," says Ross-Parker. "That's tacky."

Dig Deeper: 6 Rules for Website Design

How to Choose the Best Business Card for Your Company: Business Card Alternatives

The days of the rolodex are over and the environmentally-unfriendly business card will likely disappear in the next few decades. Kahan recalls that, "when I was in my twenties, when I went into business for myself, you absolutely had to have stationery and a business card. Those times are gone." Now must haves for starting a business include a website and an e-mail address at the very least, but Kahan asks, "who knows what it will be 10 years from now?" Here are some options for business card alternatives:

•    Create a Stamp – While this option is not high tech, it is environmentally friendly. Creating a stamp with all the information that would be on your card allows you to differentiate yourself and if you have a business with an environmental bent, it shows that you practice what you preach.

•    Send in the Smartphones – The iPhone's Bump app, which allows paperless exchanges of contact information by touching two such phones together is only one of many digital methods for transmitting your vital stats. The only problem is the person you're meeting with has to have a similar phone and app.

•    Give it a Home Online – BusinessCard2 lets you create a professional online card. It can be encapsulated in a single link but once your new contact visits the site, they can see things like your experience or the social networks you're on.

Dig Deeper: Using Different Social Networks for Different Occasions

How to Choose the Best Business Card for Your Company: Resources

Kahan says his card was designed by Heatbrain, a Chicago-based Web development and design company.

Two additional design studios, whose work was featured in our 10 Most Creative Business Cards slideshow  are the Kansas City, Missouri-based Reactor and InterFUEL, a Ventura, California-based firm.

The Joy of Connecting, is an Atlanta-based networking consultancy for women entrepreneurs

Visionary Leadership is a Bethesda, Maryland-based management consulting firm.

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