These are the basics of business card design:
1. Use your logo as the basis. Make it the largest element on the business card.
2. Keep it clean and simple. Do not cram too much information on the business card.
3. Include the essentials — your name, title, company name, address, phone/mobile numbers, and email and website addresses.
PO box addresses are generally to be avoided on business cards.
Make sure the typeface is easily readable and not too small for seniors or folk who have ‘forgotten’ their glasses.
Use a minimal amount of colour in the typefaces, and just one typeface apart from the logotype. Use a background photograph to brighten up the design if it’s looking a bit dull. A photograph of the individual can work to identify staff in a large organisation. In small companies it can look egotistical.
Many people have business card holders of one kind or another, make sure your business card fits the normal holders, keep to the standard size, as there is nothing more annoying than a card that won’t fit into a standard holder; next thing you know it’s been discarded because it didn’t fit.
Should a business card be printed one side or two sides? It’s not hard to successfully argue for either version,
a) why waste the other side it won’t cost much more to print, if anything. The back of the card provides a space to list all your services and products and is a selling space not to be wasted.
b) On the other hand, once the card is put into a card holder you can’t read the back. Worst still, if there’s important information on the back, such as contact details, it becomes very annoying to have to remove it from the holder to read. Further all that extra information can be viewed as clutter, distracting from the main message, the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) applies to business cards too. People sometimes like to write notes, quotes, or appointment times on the back of cards, hard to do if the back is full of type.
My vote goes to business cards that are primarily one sided with a minimal amount on the back. And leave space for handwritten notes/quotes/appointments.