Click on the image for a closer view.
Blank ‘Business Card’ stock image by: Brian Lary, Madison, US

A page from my notebook

I don’t remember from where I got the inspiration for using a notebook page background, but I have successfully used it twice thrice in the past. First, for my brother, I designed prize certificates with ‘notebook’ background for “Melange 2006,” organized by University College of Engineering, Thodupuzha. Then a notebook page served as the background for my e-mail wedding invitation card. People liked this unique look.

For a final assignment/presentation of a Post Graduate Degree subject, I again used this background for the PowerPoint slides. Initially we (two of my friends and I) wanted to project the slides in ‘portrait’ format; but reverted to the traditional ‘landscape’ format a few minutes before our turn as its readability was better.

When we projected the slides, our Professor was surprised and she blurted out a “What is this?” Fortunately the GE Healthcare team, who were evaluating our assignment along with the Professor, liked it and we got an ‘A’ grade. In the clutter of plain vanilla and PowerPoint default templates, our presentation did manage good ‘brand recall.’

Because of these experiences, I wanted to use a notebook page background for our new business card.

The design

The logo, company name and URL follow the antzFx logo and typography standards. They are placed on the top of the page. The person’s name (14 pt font size), Mobile phone number (8 pt ) and E-mail ID (8 pt) are in a font called ‘Hand of Sean.’ The font color is a blue (#003399) that we usually find in gel ballpoint pens. The mobile phone number is given a yellow (#ffff30) fluorescent highlighter effect. A single ‘space’ is given at both the sides of ‘@’ for easy readability of the E-mail ID.

The reverse side of the business card has a green (#009f00) background. All the text is in ‘Trebuchet MS’ font, except the ‘Arial’ ‘@’ sign of Twitter handle.

Download a blank PSD template for this business card (ZIP, 64 KB).

Who printed this?

Many asked this question to me. I printed 96 business cards for Rs.185/- (This includes printing charges, cutting charges and VAT for double sided prints on four 300gsm A3 sheets, matte finish) from Print Xpress, Richmond Road, Bangalore. Their customer service is the worst among competitors, but they are also the cheapest in Bangalore.

Reactions

Click on the image for a closer view.

The few ‘lucky’ people who received my new business card generally favored the design and mentioned that the card is quite memorable. Well, what do you think?

Design Date: 03-Sep-2011

Can you decipher the following equation?

If yes, you are as smart as the symbolist Prof. Robert Langdon. You can stop reading this and continue with your intellectual life. Others, read on…

In the past 10 years, I had to attend a lot of job interviews. Some of them were enlightening; some others were embarassing to me as I repeat the “I don’t know” line for the nth time. Once in a while, I have faced challenging questions that need me to show creativity. Today I am going to discuss one such question.

“Design a business card for you without using any alphabets.”

Although I was expected to do only one design, I came up with four. Let us start with the obvious solutions.

FACE\OFF

My friends, who recognize my face, can have this business card. My mobile phone number appears in the card (No alphabets; that means, numerals are allowed).

Code Play

The idea was to encrypt my name and address as a barcode. This can be read using a barcode reader.

On second thoughts, from a practical point of view, this can be implemented using a QR code. Modern smart phones can easily decode them.

Gmail

This card features my e-mail ID as a screenshot of my Gmail account. Technically, this is disqualified as the screenshot — although an image — contains alphabets.

Ban Me!

OK, this needs some explanation.

If you don’t know it already, my name is ‘Anas.’ In the equation depicted above, the first image is ‘bananas.’ The second image is the ‘ban’ symbol that usually appears in ‘Do not smoke,’ ‘No parking’ boards etc.

What will be the result when I subtract ‘ban’ from ‘bananas?’ Now you understood the logic, right?

I agree that this is a little convoluted. But as a result of me coming up with this design, I landed in the job!

Image Credits

• Bananas: Elembis
• Empty Card: Ilker, Turkey
• Business Card: Vivek Chugh, India
• Hand with Card: Christoffer Vittrup Nielsen, Denmark
• Business Card: Brian Lary, US

What will you do?

I am very much interested to know your answers to this business card question. Inform me your ideas in the ‘Comments’ section.

If you are looking for unique, free wedding invitation templates, you must visit blumblum.com. In this article, we are presenting 10 beautiful blank templates out of hundreds of designs available at blumblum.

1. “Marriage is a heavenly bond…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 89KB)

2. “Marriage is a divine potion…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 181KB)

3. “One fine day…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 93KB)

4. “I finally met…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 123KB)

5. “I found it real…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 106KB)

6. “Blessed shores of tranquility…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 82KB)

7. “Happily ever after…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 138KB)

8. “Wedding bells toll…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 206KB)

9. “To find our dreams…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 93KB)

10. “And you are mine…”
Click here to download this blank Wedding Invitation template »
(JPG, 800 X 600, 191KB)

Software: Adobe Photoshop
Design dates: From 06-July-2009 to 12-Sep-2009

Our Design

It is a minimum clutter design with a stress on the logo. The reverse side of the card features the tagline ‘you have seen nothing yet!’ and our twitter ID. Here is a comparison between the existing design and the new design.

The existing design resembled our website, complete with the upper and lower shadows.

Design Specifications

• File format: PSD
• Color Mode: CMYK
• Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
• Canvas size (Full Bleed Size): 95mm x 56mm.
  • Remember that the background colors and background images should extend to the full canvas size.
• Card Trim Size after cutting: 89mm x 51mm
• Design Area: 85mm x 47mm.
  • All the text should be placed within this design area.
  • When the file is released to print, don’t forget to rasterize all text layers and flatten the image.

  Download a blank PSD template for business card (ZIP, 384 KB).

Software: Photoshop
Design Date: 29-Jul-2009

Are you looking for a wallpaper or calendar?
On the occasion of the Indian Independence Day (15-Aug), here is a ‘Jai Ho!’ desktop wallpaper/calendar for you to download.

Visit this blog entry: Design – Independence Day Desktop Wallpaper Calendar

Regards,
Team antzFx.com; 13-Aug-2009

====Message End ====

India:
Vibrant,
Dynamic,
Young at heart and
A million opportunities.
Above were the words that came to my mind when I sat to make a greeting card to mark the occasion of India’s Independence Day (15th of August).

The result

Download this Greeting Card >
(JPG, 800 X 600, 192KB)

Choosing the right words

The target audience of the greeting card is people who nurture the idea of entrepreneurship — people who run the so-called ‘start-ups.’ So, the body copy should be something that uplifts the idea of freedom and what comes out of it. A quick search resulted in the finding of following words from Albert Einstein.
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”

Choosing the right image

The main principle I follow in my designs is ‘avoid the obvious (thing).’ So I know what I am not looking for: tricolor flag, balloons, fireworks, ribbons — any image that conveys the idea of a celebration.

“From where can I get good images?”

Stock photography is a big business and people like Imagebank/GettyImages, Corbis or Alamy are the market leaders. Buying an image from them is a very costly affair. So, what do poor designers do to get images?
The solution is ‘stock.xchng.’ Their website cannot be compared with the market leaders, but the images are royalty free. Of course, there exist standard restrictions like the following.
You may use the Image:
In digital format on websites, multimedia presentations, broadcast film and video, cell phones.
In printed promotional materials, magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, flyers, CD/DVD covers, etc.
Along with your corporate identity on business cards, letterhead, etc.
To decorate your home, your office or any public place.

I happened to get the image “#922084″ taken by Asif Akbar from ‘stock.xchng.’ It depicts three active young fellows leaping in joy.

Layout Intricacies

A vague idea in my mind is to show the close-up shots of the young faces. This is a better way to convey the emotion of joy. At the same time, I also wanted to show a shot of the group to represent its dynamics. All this must be contained in a frame of 800X600 pixels so that it will be easy to e-mail.

I cut ‘ribbons’ containing the close-up shots of the three faces and arranged them neatly on the right side. A scaled down version of the group photo is placed in the left background. The filter ‘Gaussian Blur’ often comes handy to add an element of depth into the images. I applied this filter with a radius of 2.0 pixels to the ‘background group.’ To get a ‘meshed’ look of the three faces, Gaussian Filter is applied to ribbons except those who carry a face.

See the comparison below.

Choosing the right fonts

It is always better to stick to a maximum of two fonts and two font colors. This is for maintaining the consistency of the image. The main font used is ‘Gill Sans MT Condensed’ which gives a compact feel. To highlight the word ‘freedom,’ ‘Edwardian Script ITC’ is used. Font colors are black for easy readability in a light background and red for highlighting. One of the boys shown in the image is wearing red T-shirt. So the color is consistent in the design.

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3
Design date: 13-Aug-2008

You may also want to check this blog entry: ‘10 Free Designs – Wedding Invitation Templates‘

The Work
My friend is getting married next month. After inviting all of us in person, he is planning to send an e-mail three days prior to the event as a reminder. His requirement was simple. He needs a stylish invitation in JPG format to use in the ‘reminder’ e-mail. I agreed to do this for him.

After a couple of days, he gave me more specifications. He sent me a small poem to appear on the invitation. He wanted clutter free and no frill fonts to facilitate easy reading.

Idea!
One fine morning, while I was bathing, the image of the finished invitation dawned in my mind. It was so clear to the very minute detail that I started the work on it immediately. After a few hours, I succeeded in making three variations of the invitation and sent them to my friend. One design had a prominent red tone; the second had a green tone and the third a blue tone.

My friends usually accuse me of using the color ‘Green’ prominently in most of my designs. Nowadays, I consciously try to avoid Green from my designs. That is one of the reasons why this website has a flashy and bright ‘Un-Green’ color! To my surprise, my friend selected the Green version of the invitation!

Design Details
Usually I start a design by drawing the idea on a paper. This case was an exception as everything was shipshape and clear right from the start. But for your advantage, I am giving the line drawing just like the idea appeared first in my mind.

Here is the final version that my friend accepted.

Download this blank template » (JPG, 1024 X 768, 141KB)
You may also want to check this blog entry: ‘10 Free Designs – Wedding Invitation Templates‘
More free templates are available at blumblum.com »

You will notice that there are only a very few changes from the draft drawing. Most noticeable are the change in the position of the poem text and the small tilt of the entire image.

1. A base image layer is created by multiplying the flower image. This layer is at 30% opacity.
2. The paper edge layer features a ‘Drop shadow’ effect with 50% opacity, angle of light at 120 degrees, distance of 5 pixels, a 50% spread and a size of 20 pixels. The whole image is tilted by an angle of 1 degree in CCW (Counter Clock Wise) direction.
3. The white flower image was given a ‘Color Balance’ of +100 Green.
4. The Green color used has an RGB value of ‘#5F9207.’
5. A yellow border enhanced the overall look and gave a ‘contained’ feel.
6. The poem was given a Golden look and the font used is ‘Pristina.’ ‘Century Gothic’ is used for the names. ‘Tempus Sans ITC’ is used for the date and venue details. I really liked the ampersand in ‘Edwardian Script ITC.’ So I gave a bigger ampersand in the background of the poem with 10% opacity.
7. The whole design started with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch and had dimensions of 1024 X 768 pixels. The final image is reduced to 800 X 600 pixels with a JPG compression quality of 12.

I hope you find this post useful.

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
Design date: 01-June-2008

You may also want to check this blog entry: ‘10 Free Designs – Wedding Invitation Templates‘
More free templates are available at blumblum.com »