Book Business Cards

To all Graphic Designer and lover of creative Design

Two years ago, when they asked us to participate in the production of the book ” Image of business cards today” we were thrilled.

A large attendance of graphic designer all around the world have contributed to project the elaboration of this book containing 300 pages, especially dedicated to business cards.

The result is a collection of the best works produced in the world, conducing the Inspiration or simply give a short glance into the fabulous and varied world of graphics.

We want to give you the opportunity to purchase this marvelous book for in our shop.

Enjoy reading !

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And the winner is…

We’d like to thank once again all participants of our “makeover” contest. With considering the votes of our blog visitors the jury came to the following decision:

1st place: Chris Connolly, Ireland

Entry without attached comment.
According to our specifications this is a design with modern lettering, with the jury liked most because of its dynamic impact.

2nd place: Roberto Ottaviano, Italy

Again an entry without attached comment.
Even if we didn’t ask for a makeover of the logo itself, it was the idea and overall impression which could convince the jury.

3rd place: Mario Bukowski, Marios Designzimmer, Deutschland

Comment attached: “I didn’t want to change the main features of the logo (value of brand recognition), therefore I only chose a different, more modern font (Audimat), which lets the lettering appear mor zeitgeisty than the Minion. Apart from that I renounced the stylized “coffee cup vapor billow”, as this is inappropriate to represent a printing company. Given this the outcome was a new logo, which however didn’t allow to be captured.” (editor’s note: well, actually this isn’t meant to be a “coffee billow”, but the heat which rises from a business card which is coming out of the printing-press )

Also in this case the jury awarded the overall idea business cards.

Many thanks to all participants and congratulations to the winners!

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Now it’s your turn: give your vote!

As Businesscards EXPRESS became bce-online.com and our lettering needs a makeover, we invited graphic designers to participate in a logo makeover contest.
Several designs reached us. Many thanks to all participants! Nine designs got into the final round.
Now we’re curious about the opinion of our blog visitors: Which design gets YOUR vote? (multiple answers are possible)
Our jury will take their decision on December 14th. You als blog visitor have a vote which will be included in this decision. The artists which created the designs on the first three placed will be awarded with shopping coupons, with which they can order for free in our online shop transparent business cards, postcards, flyers or whatever they wish. So now let us know: which artwork is your favorite? Which one should be awarded?

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6

Number 7

Number 8

Number 9

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Participate & Win: “Makeover Design Contest”

In the light of recent events we’ve arranged a contest for graphic and visual media designers: Set your hand to our lettering, spice up our logo and win shopping credit worth up to 400 euro!

Businesscards EXPRESS became bce-online.com, nevertheless logo and lettering till now were retained unchanged. Now however a makeover of these parts of our corporate design is overdue. As in course of years we’ve amplified our product range, since a good while we no longer simply offer just business cards. What of course remained, however, is our specialization on transparent printed products.

Briefing

Our lettering needs a complete transformation. On the one hand now it should read “bce-online.com”, on the other hand the lettering should transport the idea of transparency and regarding this aspect be intriguing. We ourselves define us as “high touch” online printers, which means that, obviously apart from the quality of our products, for us providing a proficient and friendly customer service is a prime principle. When ever you need help, one of our customer assistants will be happy to assist you (except during the night, though . The lettering of our logo should correspond to this human aspect of our coporate philosophy. Therefore it shouldn’t be too “clean”, but appealing. Apart from that, please consider that half of our customers are graphic designers and agencies and that the lettering should suite the taste of this professional circle. We’re sure that for you, being part of this circle, it won’t be a big deal to put yourself in the shoes of our target group

Our corporate colors are green, red and gray. The lettering preferably won’t add a new color. The logo itself shouldn’t be changed fundamentally, in aspects of shadows, reflection , three-dimensionality e.g., in one word regarding the style you chose for the lettering, however, an adjustment surely will make sense.

How do you participate?

Kindly read the text on this page attentively and completly. A PDF file with the actual lettering and logo, which will be of help for your work, you can download here. Please send your artwork in EPS format to germany@bce-online.com. Entry deadline will be December 10th, 2010. By sending your artwork you declare to accept the eligibility requirements. Especially you accept that bce-online.com LLC takes all rights of use on your artwork, and has the possibility to use it also in a second moment, even when your file didn’t make it among the awarded artworks. Bce-online.com LLC will have the right to use it for printed products as well as online. Furthermore you ensure, that the submission doesn’t infringed the rights of a third person.

This is, what you can win

To the best three entries we award a shopping credit worth 400 Euro (for the 1st place) and 160 Euro (for the 2nd and 3rd place, each). From all incoming artworks an in-company jury will choose the best ones. The criteria for the jury’s decision will be the grade of professionalism in the realization of your idea as well as the grade in which we consider you design as fitting to our corporate identity. We’ll narrow down the choice and those contributions, which pass the pre-selection will be published with name and link to the artist on our blog, so that the visitors of our blog will get a vote as well. The jury will take their final decision on December 14^th, the awarding and sending of the notification to the winners will be on the same day. This way the coupons can be used immediately afterwards, still before Christmas. On request we will send you vouchers to put under the Christmas tree. The jury’s decision is final. There is no right of appeal.

And now we want to wish you good luck! business cards

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1000+ Creative Business Card Designs, Part 2

We just came across another online business card collection, which we think deserves an article on its own:

The title of the collection is “Oh, my God… It even has a watermark!”, obviously named after the famous and fabulous business card scene in American Psycho. For those of you who don’t haven’t seen it yet and for those who can’t get enough of it, watch it in full length on Youtube

The online business card collection http://www.itevenhasawatermark.com is a great inspirational source of uncounted ideas for how to design an outstanding business card (…and for how to present it nicely). With categories for the colors, themes, technique or material of the cards and a section “similar cards” beneath each single portrait. See for yourself. Here are some examples:

Uncle Pear, Agency for Webdesign, Italy

Mixtape Generation, Japan

Chris O’Neil, SassenDesign, Australia

Pao & Lee Design, China

Good Appl.es

Fabien Barral

Valerian Blos

Thielen Designs

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iPhone To Go

Key tags are a cute and intelligent solution for membership programs. You can take them with you anywhere and e.g. enter the gym or participate in a bonus program at all times having never forgotten your menbership card at home.

Key tag (original size)

Apart from that with a nice design key tags will literally decorate your bunch of keys. With only a mobile number they can even be used als tiny smart business cards. For your inspiration we created little iPhone keytags illustrating the potential of these type of plastic card

Our standard key tag solution turns a plastic card into a set of 3 key tags, but of course you may also choose custom shapes. Send us you artwork either with same design for all of the 3 key tags of a card or combine 3 different designs. Every single key tag can be personalized individually by barcode, name or numeration. This way by ordering 500 triple key tag cards you receive 1500 individually personalized key tags. An incredibly economic solution for membership programs. Explore the potential of plastic key tags!

BTW our iPhone key tags have been designed by using the iPhone PSD Vector Kit by Smashing Magazine. Thank you, Renee Rist and SM, on behalf of our graphic designer for providing this great tool!

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New Transparent Business Cards – Freshly Printed

Transparent business cards are our utmost speciality However, it’s always the interplay of a good design and this extraordinary material, which creates an outstanding impact. Here are some examples of freshly printed business cards to insipre you (by clicking on the images you can enlarge them):

Transparent business card of Oliver Burghart - Event manager

Design: Oliver Burghart
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: hot foil stamping in gold

Transparent business card of Timo Hecht - Hecht Photography

 

Design: René Eusterfeldhaus
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV-Offset (only black and magenta)

Transparent business card of Christina Anderwald – Diplomdesignerin

Design: Christina Anderwald
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV offset (4c + white)

Transparent business card of Dr. Ina Wimmer

Design: Oswald Rofner
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV offset (only magenta and white),
with a background in 30% white on the right side and upper half
to create an opal glass effect

Transparent business card of Totalisimo – advertising agency

Design: Totalisimo, Spain
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV offset (black, white and yellow),
with a white layer on the back of the black print to enhance opacity

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Tutorial: What Do You Mean by „Offset Colors Are Transparent“?

Earlier this week with a customer I exchanged some mails on UV offset printing in general and then eventually this lead to a treatise on the characteristics of offset inks. I’d say this is a good occasion to write a post on the transparency of offset inks.

First of all, offset colors are generally slightly transparent. Even an “opaque white” isn’t opaque at 100%.
Normally, on white substrates, apart from the fact that thus offset colors are more brilliant than colors in digital printing, the transparency has no further effect. On transparent materials, however, the transparency of the inks evokes a special impact and requires extra attention.

Due to the transparency of the inks, in many cases it is necessary to add a white layer on the back of some graphic elements to render the colors more opaque. With such a white layer the impact of the design doesn’t depend so much on the incidence of light and the background, and in addition the colors appear more vibrant.
Adding a white layer behind white elements isn’t possible and thus white itself has to remain slightly transparent. To achieve an absolutely opaque white in offset printing is only possible by means of several (3-4) layers of color. This actually is a very elaborate and thus expensive procedure and therefore makes only sense with large orders.
One example for such a special order is the Dorint-Flyer:

This flyer has been printed with five layers on crystal clear PVC: print for the front of the flyer, three layers of white in between, print for the back. The background of the design for the back side is golden, and even if metallic inks are the most opaque of all offset inks, with backlight you can still see the print from the other side shine through a bit.

The best impression of the transparency of offset inks surely conveys the following picture. The card has been printed with white at 100%.

In many cases in which the design plays with transparency, in which gentle gradients or maybe a transparent coloring of the whole business card is desired, the transparency of the inks is an advantage.

In all other cases we’re happy to assist you with an advice based on our long experience with these transparent materials. If you wish, we can also provide you with special samples which illustrate different grades of transparency, with and without a white layer.

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1000+ Creative Business Card Designs, Part 1

There are some incredible and voluminous business card collections out there in the vastness of the web. Great for inspiration or just for to look and marvel. Here is a selection:

Cool Business Cards Designs (at creativebits.org)
One of the “classical” collections. Recently the bell was sounded for the third round: part 2 und part 3

33 Stunning Business Cards (at Farbwolke.de)
Nice, well-researched collection with a lot of “new” business cards, i.e. not just taken from the other famous galleries.

Businesscards of Bloggers (at brianyerkes.com)
Yes, there ARE bloggers who stick to REAL business cards…

35 Cool and Inspirational Business Card Designs (at crazyleafdesign.com)
Some repetitions, but also some “new” cards.

Art of the Business Card (at dailypoetics.typepad.com)
A very voluminous “classic”, unfortunately a bit laborious to browse.

100 (Really) Creative Business Cards (at webdesignerdepot.com)
A collection of business cards which have been taken from other collections, in all nice, though.

To be continued.

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Spirograph Business Card

In the 60s the invention of the spirograph initiated a hype: kids all over the world were keen on drawing fancy curves and spirals by means of this toy.

The spirograph consists of a set of plastic disks and rings in various sizes. The edges of all dics and rings have teeth and thus engage with each other like gear wheels.
The discs have little wholes in which a point of a pen has to be placed. While moving the disc the pen draws spirals on the ground, similar to this one, only that the discs have no “crossbeam” and the spirals are drawn inside the circle:

Here is a clever young lady who invented a spirograph business card, cut from acrylic with a laser cutter.
Great idea! The person who receives the business card can tinker about with it and finally design and draw his own spirals. As with time the discs might get lost, we recommend to place the contact data on the frame, just like she did

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