Business cards!

[missroserose]

Well, do they count as business cards if they're not for an actual business?

In any case, it's come to my attention more than once that the Rebel Bartender (who, incidentally, has a shiny new URL at http://www.rebelbartender.com) could use some business cards. Nothing fancy, just something eye-catching to give to people who express interest in her venture.

Having heard good things about VistaPrint, I therefore took it upon myself to try out their design services and see what I could come up with. These would be the preliminary results, along with some thoughts on each of them; if anyone has additional opinions to contribute on anything from layout to picture to fiddly bits like fonts and placement, I'd more than welcome your thoughts.




I like the general elegance of this design, as well as the fairly modern centered look. I'm a bit concerned that the Chopin bottle looks like an advertisement, though - curse my forgetting to get a photo of the martini alone. (OTOH, the bottle is fairly classy-looking, and leaves little doubt as to what's in the glass.) Brian said that the negative space along the sides made it look frankly boring to him, and he may have a point.




Taking a bit of a different tack, this one's a bit more colorful. It also uses one of their stock images, which comes with the two-pronged caveat of being cheaper but also less unique. I think the colors are eye-catching, and I like the cursive font, but I'm not convinced that the more minimalist/modern look isn't a better way to go.




Emphasizing the martini glass a bit more here. Frankly I wish I could make the background black, but there wasn't an option for it. The brown is neutral and complements the olives, though. Note the shabby editing job on the bottle; frankly if I go with this design I think I might just re-shoot the martini alone, or possibly even come up with something more colorful (that can therefore match the background as well).




Similar crop job, sans editing. Also experimented with shrinking down the font so the slogan would fit all in one line, but I think that leaves too much blank space (a recurring issue, since the only contact info I'd be listing is the email/website). The lighter color picks up the olives nicely, but I don't think the text pops quite as well.

So...thoughts?

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I would definitely reshoot, and get something you're happy with. I like the third card--the color scheme reminds me of the website--but I would definitely go with shrinking the text. Is the 'no punctuation/no capitalisation' deliberate?
The first one is very classy in that granite and marble nineties corporate megalith sort of way. I seem to recall an option for flourishes, perhaps that could fill some of the negative space? Or, if you reshoot, get a wider image by adding your own flourishes?

My cards were VistaPrint and I was terribly pleased. I may have squeed to you about them.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

You might have mentioned Vistaprint. Mostly I remember someone at the Bisbee Merchants' meeting mentioning them.

The lack of capitalization is meant to reflect the way it displays on the website. The "author, mixologist" bit was left uncapitalized for symmetry (since neither the slogan nor the contact info is capitalized), but I may change my mind about that. Does it stand out in a bad way?

Sadly, Vistaprint's interface is a touch limited. The original layout on the first one is designed to have address/phone info on the sides, so there isn't a way to widen the picture or add flourishes that I can find. Shame, though, 'cos you're right - that'd probably help fill the space nicely.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

...I am not a good judge of 'what would normal people notice and/or take negatively' because I write, and I was an editor, and these things grab me by the lapels and shake me.
(It's nearly as bad as 'steampunk' with no punk in it.)

[my-aerie.livejournal.com]

*chimes in* I don't think it stands out in a particularly bad way--I didn't even notice til I read Cyrano's comment. It does feel maybe just a touch awkward, but I personally would leave it all lower case or all upper case...slogans with proper punctuation for some reason tend to really annoy me, probably partly because they're rarely proper sentences. Plus, there's a certain symmetry to lower case that you'll never find with proper capitalizing and punctuating.

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

I like the second card myself, the one with the strawberry. It speaks to me more of "rebel" for starers-- martinis garnished with olives are common, but I can't immediately place a drink that usually uses strawberries as a garnish, except maybe strawberry daiquiris, which are generally not blue.

I'd remove the photo credit, because it stands out weird. I'm not sure if that's just for the website here, or actually intended on the cards. It also strikes me as slightly egotistical to have your name twice; I might be okay with a smaller, less obvious, more in-the-flow of the cards photo credit on a future employee's cards, but it grates on yours.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* The photo credit is my own fault - I forgot to turn off Picasa's "Watermark the photo when you upload it" feature. I promise it's not going on the cards - you're right, that'd be a bit weird.

Also, good point about the cocktail being a bit more rebellious. I'd gone with the martini theme because it has a classy sort of feel that I'd like to associate with the blog (it's not about getting drunk, it's about *appreciation*), but you bring up a good point about it being sort of common.

[joyfulleigh.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, and also with Cyrano about the capitalization. I'd capitalize the start of each word in your slogan, but leave it without punctuation.

To whom do you intend to give these cards?

L.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I just typed the slogan out like you suggested, and I dunno - something about it feels a bit...Olde Worlde, if that makes sense. I keep thinking I should append it with "Since 1935" or something like that. :) I think on the whole I prefer the lower-case for the slogan, although the "author, mixologist" part is still up for grabs.

Frankly, whomever seems interested. When it comes up in conversation a lot of folks ask about the name/address, but nobody remembers that stuff without an aid and scrounging for a pen and a bit of paper is awkward. I figure, hey - business cards are cheap, professional-looking, and a handy way of telling someone "I liked talking to you, stop by and see me sometime online".

[joyfulleigh.livejournal.com]

Cool.

[my-aerie.livejournal.com]

The second one is my favorite. I like the composition and particularly love the way your cursive text picked up the strawberry's color.

The words in the first one are maybe a bit too close together, they're a touch crowded--spacing them out would help a little with negative space, but overall, I agree with Brian, that one's just too sparse.

The third is okay, but still leaves a big gap of negative space. I'd also suggest spacing out your slogan so you don't end up with only one word on the second line--either increase text size or just make the line shorter, I would suggest.

I don't care for the last one--aside from similar problems to the third with the negative space, I think the background and the text don't have quite enough contrast to be comfortable.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was concerned about the contrast on that one, too.

cyranocyrano said the first one made him think that someone who handed it to him would work for a giant corporation with Satan as the CEO that had been secretly been pulling strings for the whole world. Given that that one was the one that inspired the American Psycho reference, I think I'm going to chalk it up as "too corporate", despite the fact that I like the elegance of it.

[errant-variable.livejournal.com]

The second card is definitely the most approachable. It has a fun color scheme without sliding into vulgarity, there's a definite name/title/data theme (good on business cards) and having a strawberry stuck down the side of a martini glass is going to make a lot of people doubletake a little. I'm also a fan of blue cocktails. :D

Regarding the third, the way you cropped that photo works really well IMO. Your dissatisfaction with the bottle editing is understandable, but the diffuse light and the ratios that it has (not to mention the small miracle of the base of a martini glass being visually interesting) more than make up for it. If you do reshoot, you could try to recreate that with a plane frosted vase or something of that nature.

Grow the name - if the dead space isn't working for you (it doesn't seem to be) fill it with your name. This is, after all, *your* card. The fourth variation is the underlined reason why you should do this, since the miniscule name makes it looks like there may have been someone else there that was hastily cut from the design. You could combine this with the overall layout of the third card, which I rather like, grow the photo slightly and move it a leeetle to the right so there are roughly equal portions of brown and glow before the glass? Do keep the smaller tagline from the fourth card, though.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I should start out by noting that when asked for feedback, I tend to be really critical, so this will probably come across as a little scathing, but I do really like these. :) They're quite a bit nicer than what I would have tossed together myself as a first stab.

Hm. I think that there's a degree to which it depends what you're trying to portray. The initial, dark one looks much classier and 'upscale' to me, so I think if that's the market you're aiming for, that's the best design. Of the remaining three, I like the full-colour one better than the flat-colour-background designs because I think that the colouration makes it stand out a bit and gives it a richer, more inviting feel. I think that the colour plus the strawberry make it still feel slightly upscale but with a playful element that the dark one doesn't have, but again, it feels more casual, so if you're going for very-discerning / very-high-end I'd go with the top ones.

The alignments of everything on all the cards bothers me. :) I like very well-defined lines, and a small number of them. I think the design tends to look cleaner when one sticks to that. In particular, I'm not a fan of the centering on the top one, as it creates a hodge-podge of alignment points. It also bothers me a lot that the horizontal line near the bottom doesn't align to anything -- its width seems completely arbitrary. The alignments are simpler on the other cards, but the indenting makes it all look very "messy" to me -- I really would left-align every bit of text if it's in a vertical group like that.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way, so no worries - when I ask for a critique, I'd far rather have someone's honest opinion than just a "Good job, you!" and a pat on the back. But it's nice to know you like the designs. :)

The upscale vibe is really what's got me torn on the first design. I do want to appeal to that demographic (or people who would like to consider themselves in that demographic, anyway), in large part because it's the group most associated with alcohol appreciation (rather than alcohol-to-get-drunk). But that doesn't mean there aren't alcoholics in that group (quite the reverse), and there's a certain amount of brand cachet and the like that's not what I'm looking for at all. (So I guess that makes name-checking the Chopin perfectly appropriate, then.) Plus it doesn't really say "accessible", which is part of what I'm trying to get across - for people who want to *learn* alcohol appreciation, it's my goal to be a central resource.

That's interesting about the alignments. The indentations and such were my attempt to make it more visually interesting than just a block of text with a ragged edge, but I think you have a point about it not looking as clean.

[onionhead.livejournal.com]

They're all lovely. The first one is my favorite and the second one is a close second. They both made me want to read what was on them.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Well, you can see my likes/concerns about the first one in the comments above. Given the reaction, I'm kind of leaning towards the second, even if it does make Brian (who actually follows trends in graphic design and such) say "Oh geez, not orange-and-blue again... (http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-make-every-movie-look-same.html)"

[due27south.livejournal.com]

I like the second one.
Question, why do you phrase it "learning the art of the cocktail" instead of "learning the art of cocktails"? "the cocktail" just sounds weird to me.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

It implies that "the cocktail" is a concept rather than a collective noun, and thus sounds a touch more formal. I phrased it that way 'cos I'm snooty like that. :)