Business cards are one of the most under appreciated products in a business person’s arsenal – not only do they show people how to contact you, but present a professional image that is aligned with your appearance and in some cases outlook on life. Why should your business card holders be any different? Whether you’re looking for a holder to keep your business cards in your pocket, or to display prominently on a table or other display surface, you’ll find a range of products to suit your needs.
Whether you’re designing a business card for personal use, or professional use, you should always consider the information that you need to include in them. Pare it down to bare essentials if you have too much, or consider printing auxiliary information on the back of the card. Your company or personal logo should be prominent on one or both sides. The design itself should be clean and easy to read – fancy fonts should be limited to readable styles so that your card is legible – you should also be aware that some people consider flowery scripts in detrimental ways to what may be a completely different message that you want to provide. Readability aside, the font should fit comfortably on the page, and may or may not tie into your logo, depending on your company’s guidelines on business cards. But how do you know what to include on the front and what do you include on the back?
Austerity and elegance aside, the most important thing in the design of business card holders and display units is ease of use. As long as it meets all of the design criteria, and doesn’t damage your cards, business card holders are probably one of the most practical tools you’ll ever use out of the office – either on display stands or elsewhere.
While business card holders contain some cards, you should always keep spares in the box that they arrived in, on your person – on a successful night, the last thing you want to do is run out of business cards to hand out, and you should never assume that the amount you’re carrying with you will last long enough to create a larger buss about your business. Personal business card holders are designed to be used in conjunction with hidden stores of cards. Whether you keep them in the same pocket or another pocket and keep refilling, or draw from your box and keep your business card holder ones as spare, you will always find that the ones in your pockets are kept clean and safe
Most business card storage and display units are designed to be both slim line and functional. Most are made of moulded plastic, though others may be made of premium materials, depending on the statement that the end user wants to make. Most however are made of plastic and feature some form of prop mechanism (to stand on a desk), link up mechanism (to join two or more units), and more. These display units ensure that your business cards are displayed prominently – there is no distraction due to the design of your cards. Business card holders that impede or damage cards on removal are also less than desirable, so you should always ensure that there is no dust, dirt, grit or other foreign bodies in the holder, that they haven’t become warped or damaged in storage and that they perform their function without falling over, coming apart or otherwise failing to remain unobtrusive.
Depending on the environment you intend to use your card holders in, will depend if they are designed to be used in a permanent position – such as on the front of a reception desk, or on a stand or other display area during a convention. Card holders that are ‘static’ – such as when they are consistently left on a reception desk or other area can be discreetly attached to ensure that they aren’t accidentally knocked over or pushed off the desk for any reason. These static holders can be replenished as little or as often as required. For portable displays, the first thing you need to consider is how light the display needs to be to transport, but ensure that it’s still heavy enough to stay put on a table display.
Business card holders and stands aren’t constantly in use in most cases – so when not in use, you should store them carefully. Polish and dust your holders before storage, and put your business card holder away in a drawer. You should also always ensure that any business cards you are using are current – it looks terrible if you cross out and write different information on your cards, so always update and ‘freshen’ your cards whenever things such as your extension, job title, or email address change – alternatively, consider using a ‘catch all’ email address like Gmail to allow you to keep your email mobile, but not need to update cards at every address change.
Finally, remember your business cards, and your business card holders should look professional, and create a unified image between you, your company and your products. Without a unified, streamlined effect, your business card could end up in a bucket, not in business card holder.
There are a broad variety of Business Card holders available online and some excellent ones at Card Holder be sure to have a good look around before making a purchase.. This article, Business cards and business card holder is released under a creative commons attribution license.
