How To Use Luxury Business Cards To Market Your Brand

Business cards can be hard to get right. There are a number of variables to consider. What size should they be? How thick should they be? Should they be colourful? How much information should be included? The list can go on and on. In this blog we'll be writing about luxury business cards, and what needs to be considered when choosing one.

A business card printed on high quality paper card.

Size

Despite what you may have heard, size does matter. However, it can be hard to work out what the correct size really is. There's no worldwide standard as far as business card sizes go. The standard for Western Europe is 85mm x 55mm, but some may opt for credit card sized business cards at 85.6mm x 53.98mm. Others may choose to distribute A8 sized cards (that's a sixteenth the size of A4 paper/card) at 74mm x 52mm. You can see a full list of business card dimensions around the world on Wikipedia. Really any size of business card will do, as long as it isn't too big to fit in a wallet, or much smaller than standard business cards. A small business card can look like it was printed incorrectly or designed badly.

Material

Most business cards are printed onto card, however, thickness (known as weight in the print world) can vary. Thickness/weight is measured in GSM (grams per square meter). Your standard paper might be 90GSM, while a typical business card might be 270GSM. The heavier the material that's used, the higher quality the card and therefore the company is considered to be.

Popular printing methods today such as digital and offset lithographic printing struggle to print onto heavier cards, however, letterpresses can print onto virtually anything, some offering 800GSM and higher cards for truly luxury finishes.

Of course, you're not just limited to card, other materials can also be used, including wooden veneers, translucent plastics, as well as metals. Plastics aren't used so much, mainly due to the environmental impact of the material. Wood and metal are also rarely used, but this is more down to the cost of creating these cards. Metal cards can offer a highly exclusive aesthetic if you can afford to give them away.

Colours

Obviously, colour choices really come down to your company's branding. You can learn more about what different colours say about your company in our blog post, "What the colour of your merchandise says about your brand".

A white business card with black typography can be considered quite formal and traditional, whereas a black card with white text appears more luxury and exclusive.

Extra Information

Something we brushed over earlier was the amount of information that should be present on a business card. If you're looking to store extra info such as images or even videos, then make sure to check out the USB Flash Drive Card, available for TM. This could be used to store all kinds of data, even a whole portfolio of past work.

Read more about business cards and unique designs in our post, A Guide To Creating An Individual Business Card.

Written by

Total Merchandise | Editoral Team

Our editorial team is drawn from a pool of experienced promotional merchandise product team members, account managers, marketers and other contributors. With such a wide range of skills and experience, they write about many aspects of promotional merchandise, wider marketing and business matters, as well as company news updates.

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