Business card

Designer's Take

Graphic designer Damon Kocina, sole proprietor of Strategic Graphics in Delano, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul, has a few opinions on the matter. Before you can design your business card, he says, you have to decide what you want it to do. "People have forgotten the purpose of a business card -- to provide easy-to-read contact information, and offer a glimpse of your distinct service," he says. "I call it Damon's Truth: A well-designed business card lets someone get back to you with ease."

Damon hasn't always been so wise: he used to practice (gasp!) "pretty-picture advertising" -- lots of flash and little substance.

"Photoshop allows you to do so much," Kocina says. "You go apeshit designing cards that feature more fancy form than true function."

To illustrate poor business-card design, Kocina tells of an acquaintance who chose a flashy design for his business card simply because his competitors had -- thereby aligning himself with them even though he provided a distinct, higher-quality service. "He does things quite differently from anyone else, but you wouldn't know it by his business card -- a four-color, two-sided number like those used by his professional peers in an increasingly competitive marketplace," says Kocina. "He's a victim of an identity crisis."