My business cards for my freelance design venture have been delivered, so I thought I would post a photo and some info here for posterity.

They are printed on 380gsm fsc accredited board, matt laminated, and die cut with spot UV varnish to the front logo.

I decided to spend a little extra on the enhancements to illustrate to potential clients the finishes that are commonly available. I’m hoping that they will pay for themselves fairly quickly, but only time will tell.

I also wanted to mention something that really got my attention in design theory, back in my university days: Phi; the golden ratio or section; divine proportion; 1.6180339887. It’s presence through nature and history and it’s use in design and architecture fascinated me, and still do. In the past I have used it as a starting point for layouts and grid systems within my work, but my business cards represent the first time I have designed to the proportion in it’s entirety. I knew what I wanted on the cards, and I worked towards creating a grid which would allow me to apply them accordingly. For more information on phi, this site has an exhaustive collection of articles and this page contains some useful links for further reading.

Conveniently, and possibly not by coincidence, the standard measurement of business card supplied by my regular printer conforms quite nicely to Phi, so that was a good starting point. See below for the template I worked to.

Whilst I wanted to include some wow factor on the front, I tried to keep the back as simple as possible. Utilising a fairly plain design with a white background, they allow clients to jot small notes on the reverse if they choose, at the same time as using my chosen trading name ‘design is’ to bring into question the nature of my service and providing a quick definition (thanks to The Oxford English Dictionary) to give them a starting point to think from.

Essentially, I want potential clients to be thinking, “What else can design is do for my business?”

Let me know what you think of my cards. I’ll take all constructive thoughts into consideration for the next iteration.

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Bill Dan touching his work

I thought I would make my first real post about something that wasn’t necessarily related to design or technology.

On my usual travels to work via train and bus into (and slightly out of) London, I often have a flick through the daily offerings of the Metro – a free morning paper (for those who don’t know). This morning something caught my eye.

Up and down the coast of San Francisco a sculptor named Bill Dan has been using his natural approach to art to build ‘uniquely beautiful’ structures. Admittedly, I haven’t quite explored the entirety of his website, but from the snippet in the Metro I became inspired.

For me, it awoke my inner artist, taking me back to the days I used to spend in my art room at college chipping away at breezeblocks creating abstract forms, allowing the method and materials to dictate the outcome. It occurred to me that this might be a good approach to take with design from time to time. The tried and tested method that we are all taught – researching our brief, planning our designs – may not always be the most suited to the task at hand. Could it really be a bad thing to dive in, forgetting all the planning stages and starting to get our hands dirty from the get go?

I can hear in my head a lot of bad points to this. After all, proper planning can save a lot of time and money. However, if you find yourself in a situation where the client is open to ideas and a little more partial to creativity than your average businessman, then maybe it would be OK to throw caution to the wind.

More mind boggling examples of Bill Dan's art

If you want to see the original article that sparked my interest, please navigate your browsers here.

(Both images are sourced from the Metro website and property of their respective owners)

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