What does your business card say about you? Reg Rumney has some suggestions.
The most impressive business card I received last year was that handed to me by the venerable head of Anglo American chairman’s trust Michael O’Dowd.
It states simply in black print, “M. C. O’Dowd, 44 Main Street, Johannesburg,” and gives the relevant phone and fax numbers.
There is no mention of the giant corporation or its foundation, which handles millions of rands in donations to charities, non-governmental organisations or educational institutions.
That kind of understatement reeks of authority: as the saying goes if, after 30, you need a name card to be identified at functions you haven’t made it.
Mostly, Anglo’s cards are printed by its special print division and have a standard layout and format, an embossed “AAC” and the name and title of the owner of the card with other details like address and telephone contact numbers. The black lettering is a plain sans serif typeface on a plain white background, with lots of dignified white space surrounding the type.
The layout suits Anglo’s quiet, almost aloof business approach. It also avoids clutter. Clutter is a big mistake because when a business card tries to say too many things, by having too many logos on it, for instance, it ends up looking untidy and definitely un- corporate, like a Diagonal Street shopwindow.
A card for an Amalgamated Banks of SA spokesman suffers from having to accommodate each brand Absa owns, which somehow symbolises the plight of the superbank in having no overarching corporate identity.
Black on white seems to be a favourite colour scheme for business cards in South Africa, along with blue on white, and black and blue on white. They reflect a sober, business spirit, somewhat like IBM’s famous uniform of dark blue suits, white shirts and sober ties.
A business person steps out of this framework with caution. Public relations companies and ad agencies might be expected to carry through their creativity to their corporate communications, but flashy colours are not fitting for a banker or other denizen of the financial jungle, though a brightly coloured graphic logo is increasingly acceptable in some situations.
Southern Life’s Futuregrowth division business cards feature one such logo, as does the Gencor Development Trust.
In corporations the layout and logos of business cards should bear the same consistent branding message that all the company’s stationery is expected to foster.
M-Net, for instance, emphasises its entertainment focus even in its business cards, which are shaped like a movie ticket.
And perhaps it’s a blessing employees of big corporations do not often have a choice of their business cards.
Business cards can send exactly the wrong message. For instance, most of the cards in my possession printed on glossy paper, silver or gold in colour, belong to hairdressers. And for hairdressing salons such cards are fine. But one or two I have come across printed on such glossy paper don’t give me much confidence in the concerns which they are, in effect, advertising, such as financial services.
Silver or gold printing on a solid-colour background like red or blue is eye-catching, and let’s face it, this may be all one needs in a small business.
Few business cards, in South Africa at least, show any flair at all. Those ad agency execs might have the corporate logo printed on their cards in three colours, but it’s the equivalent of wearing a bow-tie with a blue suit – a touch of eccentricity.
True inspiration in designing a business card which will make people sit up and notice, in the right way, is in general sadly lacking.
Some ingenuity is shown by South African restaurateurs. A card I keep for nostalgia of the now defunct Frog restaurant of eclectic chef Susan Edelstein is shaped like the old tin-roofed house in Craighall in which the restaurant was situated.
A highly paid South African cameraman hands out replicas of credit cards as business cards. The message here is clear: if you employ me be prepared to pay lots of money.