Custom Business Cards

Along with your logo, your business card is a direct reflection of your business, and could be someone’s first impression of your company. Prospective clients will be handed several (read: too many) cards at networking events and trade shows, making it important that yours stand out – a unique card with a clean design can make all the difference. Now, while we’re taking a break from many of these in-person events, is a great time for us to reimagine your business card design.

We recommend keeping your card simple and clean, ensuring contact information is legible and easy to spot at a glance, but don't be afraid to show off your creativity with color and design. Vertical, square, and even specialty-shaped cards always stand out, or we can also create letterpress, foil-stamped, or color-core business cards as well.

Here are a few examples of standout business cards we’ve designed. These card designs vary greatly, but they contain all the information a client needs, and we make sure to always showcase content on both sides of the card, keeping things uncluttered for maximum impact. Click any photo below to enlarge it.

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Die-cut hexagonal business cards for Sugar Bee Sweets Bakery.

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Blush and slate grey square business cards on textured ivory cotton stock, for The Novel Planner.

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Square business cards with gold foil and silver foil for Doulas of Capitol Hill.

Digital Decluttering for Productivity

Regain Hours and Control 

You may be spring cleaning at home, but when was the last time you organized your digital files? It’s far too easy to let old files, backups, downloads, and programs pile up on your machine or clog up your cloud (I'm looking at you, everyone who pays for extra iCloud storage). You're forcing yourself to wade through this digital wasteland every day at work while things could be so much easier. Now is the time.

Carve out an hour or two, max. Start with one location (pick one: desktop, hard drive, external HD, or cloud service), and keep carving out time to work on it until you've organized your digital workspace. Here are some strategies you can use to get — and stay — organized:

Control Your Inbox

Email is one of the most important communication tools we use today, but some days it can feel like the bane of your existence. It’s easy to start dreading the feeling of opening your inbox first thing in the morning and being inundated with questions from colleagues and clients, along with an assortment of ads, newsletters, and junk. Control the overwhelming onslaught of emails by implementing an organization method.

First things first: unsubscribe from the junk as it lands in your inbox. Next, set up filters to send emails to their appropriate folders. Then, maintain key folders that allow you to prioritize messages by how time-sensitive they are (i.e., folders labeled Today, This Week, This Month, and This Quarter), or by project, or sender. As you open emails, use the FAST method to determine if you should File it, Assign it to someone, Store for future reference, or Trash it.

Determine a File-Naming Convention

Seriously, if you do nothing else from this blog, please stop saving files with meaningless names! Decluttering a digital wasteland is much easier when you don’t have to dig through a million ‘document1.docx’s and ‘IMG-5827.jpg’s tucked away in a generic ‘New Folder (6)’. Decide on a file-naming convention that works for you and that you can stick to consistently.

For example, you might include the date at the front of the file/folder name, so it’s easier to access timely documents, and then include the name of the project or client. Whatever makes the most sense for your workflow, determine a naming convention and apply it to all your files.

Create a Folder and Subfolder System

The efficient use of folders starts with creating a few main folders such as “photos,” “documents,” or “templates.” Then, add subfolders to each of the main folders. For example, the main photos folder could hold subfolders that are categorized by year. Just like mom knows where everything is in the house, you will know where everything is on your device or in the cloud.

Clear the Clutter

There are probably a few overflowing folders floating around on your device taking up valuable space. Reduce the tech messiness and get rid of the things you don’t need by deleting duplicate files, excessive downloads, and unused apps. If you are struggling to remember the last time you used an app, delete it. If you know you won’t use a file again, delete it. If you are on the fence about a specific file, tuck it away in a place for rarely used files. The point of organizing your digital space is to streamline your workflow. Imagine how much time is lost searching for one particular file in a sea of junk every year.

Stay Consistent

Our world today combines work, home, and social lives on our digital devices. To manage this blend, organization is key, and while keeping an organized digital life will take a little time, you have to remember to stay consistent. These digital organization habits will save you a ton of time and frustration in the long run.

Every time you add a new file take the extra few seconds to use your file-naming convention, determine where the file belongs, and store it properly. Taking a few extra seconds to organize as you go will result in less stress as you keep your digital workspace clean.

Sometimes the workweek will get inevitably hectic and your desk or devices will get cluttered, so finally, we recommend scheduling a recurring cleaning session each quarter to clean up your desktop, hard drive, external hard drive, and cloud service. Start in one place and move to the next until you achieve an organized an easy-to-navigate digital storage space.

The Case for Advertising in Uncertain Times

As the old saying goes, “When times are good you should advertise. When times are bad you must advertise.”

Some significant benefits to advertising during these uncertain times:

• Your ad projects brand stability

• Broadcast viewership, newsletter readership, blog readership, social media use, and podcast listenership is way up

• Ad rates have dropped dramatically due to the tourism and sports industries pulling all their ads, creating a “buyer’s market” for businesses

Small businesses actually have a bit of an advantage right now. It’s more difficult for large companies to pivot their marketing strategies quickly and respond to real-time shifts. Things are changing constantly and consumers are adapting at rapid pace, so brands have to step up.

If you can place an ad with
a strategically-chosen medium
and thoughtful messaging, do it!

If your business has been or is still closed, you may not be in the best position to take advantage of these deals, and that’s OK. But what you don’t want to do is stay too quiet. “When marketers cut back … the brand loses its ‘share of mind’ with consumers, with the potential of losing current – and possibly future – sales.” – Forbes

If you need recommendations on where to advertise, help negotiating the best rates, or a beautiful ad design, we’re happy to help. Even if you don’t have an ad budget at the moment, we can still put together a robust social media plan and help you stay in touch with your customers via e-blast/newsletter.

Customers Will Remember
Your Brand’s Response During This Time

“A recent Edelman study showed that one in three consumers had already stopped buying a brand they believed had not done the right thing in the face of the crisis. In addition, 71% of people agreed that if a brand were found to put profit before people during this time, then they would lose consumer trust forever. Ultimately, whether it’s six weeks or six months from now, buyers will not only judge brands by what they did during this time but by what they didn’t do.” – AdWeek

So speak up, but when you do, make sure you’re adding positive value to world. We don’t have a crystal ball to know what will come next, but we’ll keep working hard to help you evolve.