A Showcase of Creative and Functional Business Cards

Business cards are essential for networking and marketing a business. Aside from sharing your contact details to prospective customers, they are also useful for getting the word out about your brand and company. To make your business cards memorable and impressive, you may want to create a unique design and use a high quality material. Or you can make them multi-functional. To give you an idea, here are some samples of creative business cards that are useful for other functions.

Ruler

Caliper

Guitar Pick

Magnifying Glass

Bottle Opener

Comb

Nail File

A unique business card design can help make your cards stand out. But making them functional will make sure that people will keep your cards for future use.

10 Eye-Catching Trifold Brochure Designs

A trifold brochure is a sheet of paper that is folded in two to create three equal panels. Also known as a letterfold brochure, a trifold brochure usually comes in these dimensions: 8.5” x 11,” 8.5” x 14,” 11” x 17” and 11” x 25.5.” The most common example of this type of brochure is the direct mail brochure.

In creating your trifold brochure, always remember to make the design one of your top priorities. Aside from contributing to the success of your campaign, an eye-catching layout can help you make the most of trifold brochure printing and your budget.

To get you started, here are some samples you may want to consider for inspiration:

501st Legion Brochure Concept

Blue Fox Jeans

Graphic Farmers Market Brochure

DOA Trifold Corporate Brochure 01

Retro Barbershop Brochure

Olympics Brochure

Raffle Brochure

Dance Studio Brochure

 

Home Maintenance Brochure

Travel Agency Brochure

Pop Culture-Inspired Business Cards

Your business cards are supposed to grab attention and spread the word about you and your business. A unique, creative design should help them do the trick. It wouldn’t hurt if you decide to use some familiar elements as well. Like adding pop culture flavor to your business card design, perhaps?

We live in an era where pop culture is heavily referenced in conversations, both offline and online, as well as in the mainstream media – from television shows to paperback novels. So why not use it to your own advantage? For one, it would make your card more memorable, thus helping with brand recall. Another thing, pop culture-inspired cards are great conversation starter, especially if your prospect understands the reference.  And provided you do it right, they can look great too. Just look at these business cards and see if they won’t capture your interest as you try recognize where the owners got their inspirations:

Superhero trading card

Old school video game

Anime

Useful Online Inspiration Sources For Print Designers

Even as more and more businesses continue to utilize online strategies to market their goods and services, many still prefer to rely on print materials – brochures, flyers, posters, business cards, etc. – to attract customers, establish brands, promote sales or simply to provide the public with information about a product or service. But this doesn’t mean that one should not take advantage of the World Wide Web even as they feel more comfortable marketing through offline means (some of us are still old school). In fact, traditional marketers can improve their print marketing materials if they choose to look for design inspiration online.

The Internet is a very large place to look for inspiration, though. To point you in the right direction, here are several online sources you may want to check out for ideas:

Abduzeedo - A blog that features various design articles, tutorials and inspiration for a wide range of areas, including print.

Card Observer - A gallery that showcases various business card designs.

It Even Has a Watermark - An impressive gallery of unique business card designs.

Logopond - A great site for logo inspiration.

Smashing Magazine - a design blog about the latest trends and techniques in Web design and development although it sometimes features articles and tips about print design as well.

 

 

 

Eye-Catching Business Postcard Design Ideas

The marketing technque of sending out direct mail pieces has long been one of the best ways to promote sales. To that end, business postcards are considered the best format to use, compared to other materials such as sales letters and flyers.

There are several advantages that business postcards enjoy over other direct mail pieces. For one, they do not require the recipient to open anything since postcards do not need to be placed inside envelopes. The prospect simply picks it up and reads it right away, which is another advantage that postcards marketing provides. Since most people don’t have the time to read long sales letters, or even brochures, a postcard is sure to receive at least a cursory reading.

To be effective in delivering your message, your postcards should easily attract people’s attention. This is why you need to carefully consider their design. A well-designed postcard will certainly make your prospects look twice and absorb what you have to say as quick as possible. To help you get started, here are some postcard design ideas for your inspiration.

Cable Promotional Postcards

Megan Huntz Dresses

 

 

Ride The Ducks Camp Postcard

 

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Postcard Series

 

Indiestory 2010 Promotion Postcard

Green Cards: A Showcase of Eco-friendly Business Cards

Going “green” seems to be the buzzword these days in any industry as businesses are now becoming more environmentally conscious. This is evident in many corporate social responsibility programs that a lot of companies have incorporated into their business models.

To sustain such environment-friendly corporate image, it is only reasonable for some businesses to come up with marketing materials relevant to their advocacy – like printing “eco-friendly” business cards. If you are thinking of getting your own green-inspired business cards, check out these samples for your inspiration.

Lousia Xanthopoulou

Frischr

Bernard Hellen

Lemongraphic

Dingbat

Efis Design

 

 

Funny Print Ads Featuring Animals

Humor is one of the “tools” that advertising creatives rely on to capture their audience’s attention. However, what is humorous to one person can be uninteresting or even annoying to another. One great way to bridge this gap is to use animals. You can’t go wrong with cats, dogs and their other animal buddies. So, in the tradition of America’s Funniest Videos and Internet memes, here are several print ads that aim for the funny bone of the consumers – at the expense of our cute furry friends. (No animals were hurt in the making of this post.)

Hard-working Cat

Cross-legged Cats

Heaven of Pug

Dog Toast

Penguin-Dog

Peugeot Rabbit

 

Grumpy

Benetton’s Controversial Campaign Wins Cannes Ad Award

If kiss is the universal symbol of love, then the people behind Cannes International Festival of Creativity has given Benetton’s Unhate Campaign one heavy smooch by awarding the festival’s prestigious Press Grand Prix to the brand’s print campaign. Launched in November 2011, the Unhate Campaign stirred so much controversy for depicting a couple of world leaders tasting the honey of each other’s lips. (The series of excellently manipulated images included one wherein Pope Benedict XVI is shown kissing a senior Egyptian imam. Needless to say, that image was withdrawn from the campaign).

The provocative print ad campaign was created by Fabrica, Benetton Group’s communication research center in partnership with 72andSunny.  The campaign was meant to send a message to the world about the “need to overcome the culture of hate, through dialogue and the understanding of differences…” By awarding the Grand Prix, the jury recognizes the brand’s creative (albeit shocking) way of delivering such important and very serious message.

Rack Card Designs That Rock

In marketing a business, one must be open to different strategies in order to increase the chances of success. So aside from using the Internet to generate leads and attract customers, you may also want to try putting a bit of your resources into traditional forms of advertising from time to time, especially if you are running a brick-and-mortar store. One good suggestion: Rack cards.

Easy to design and print, rack cards are very cost-effective tools to use in promoting small businesses. Done right, these materials can leave a nice impact on walk-in customers. If you need ideas in creating your own rack cards, here are several rack card designs for your inspiration:

Nick Naretto

Tara Kenny

Swabby McSweetie

Christine Cerniglia

 

Dustin Froehlich

Creative Hang Tag Design Ideas

Most hang tags are simple, square-shaped paper stock printed with details that usually indicate the material used in manufacturing a product, how to care for it, and other relevant company information. However, a good hang tag design can do more than just give the consumers an idea what they can get from the product and some few simple instructions. If you want to push your brand in the minds of your target consumers, then consider designing unique and creative hang tags that people will find memorable.

The company logo is the usual image that most hang tags have. Beyond putting your logo, you may come up with a concept for your hang tag that will give your marketing efforts a focus. For example, if you want to target upscale customers, then you may want to emphasize elegance in your theme. If you decide to add value to your tag, one practical way to provide a tear-out portion that your customers can use as a discount coupon in their next purchase.

To help you create unique and impressive hang tags, here are some hang tag designs you may want to check out for inspiration:

Terri Gosse

Daniele Machado

Danielle Clough

Matthew Ryf

Melina Daffunchio

Joel Villaflor