Creativity amped with business cards

I had a great time participating in Meredith Marsh‘s Business Card Exchange. I believe this is the second year she has done this and its a nice way to learn of other designers in the industry and perhaps network out and become friends with other talented people in the design community.

However not everyone is keen to seeing what the benefit is in participating so I figured I’d share some tips on what to look for to amp up your creativity and get the most out of these business card exchanges.

Engage the design community

A few of the 2010 business card exchange participants

Engaging the design community allows you to extend your reach with existing and fresh talent in the design communities. By allowing yourself to meet others who may or may not be more experienced than you, increases your awareness of web trends and allows for a different perspective of creativity. In fact just by participating in the business card exchange a few designers added me and some left some nice comments about my site and business cards. These are people I probably would have never met otherwise so you can see how easy it is for the community to equally engage you back. You never know if an opportunity will come along that could increase your goals as a web or graphics designer so never be hesitant about joining in on these designer business card exchanges.

Recognize the trends

It’s easy to side track the importance of keeping up with trends in the design community. The problem is if you don’t keep up, you usually fall behind and eventually get weeded out of the market quickly as time progresses. It ultimately depends on the client but clients aren’t going to be as big of risk takers as you are in their design processes for business cards. They want something thats standard, works, and brings in more visitors to sell their product or service. However, when you are participating with other designers you can be more free in expressing yourself and show off your skills. I personally enjoyed the business cards that kept things clean, simple, and light as this seems to be an emerging trend on the web as of late. Perhaps its because its easier to maintain or because of faster loading times; either way, its a win win for the designer and the user.

Here are a some of the minimalistic cards I enjoyed out of the bunch:

Of course there are a ton of other good designers in the list with different styles which aren’t listed here but this article isn’t intended to go into detail about the various design styles. Just be aware of the trends you see other designers doing and see if you can creep in some of that sweet design action into your own designs in the future.

Include your social networks

This seems like a no brainer right? However I noticed others, including myself (doh!), haven’t done this. They may have been trying to keep things less cluttered which is definitely a goal to keep in mind for a business card but I found that the business cards that got the biggest reaction for me were the ones I could add to my social networks. After all in the context of this design business card exchange I’m less inclined to email someone on a business card and more likely going to add them to social networks to keep tabs on their work. It’s important to note however that traditional businesses still favor email, but new and online businesses definitely favor social networks and fast communication. Twitter was the winner in this batch of cards, but facebook or linkedin wouldn’t be a bad thing to add either if you are looking to expand your social reach.

Just Have Fun With It

Business card exchanges wouldn’t be that awesome if you didn’t have others to share your creations with. It’s probably one of the only times you aren’t being limited in creative freedom by adhering to client requirements and web standards. So don’t get bogged down thinking it is just another project. Have fun with it and don’t forget to make some new friendships along the way.

Other Resources

Check out some of these other bloggers discussing the 2010 business card exchange this year.

Branden Silva is a creative cookie who likes to devour the internet in a big way. When he's not building amazing web/mobile sites and applications for clients, he's building his own frankenstein creations with the latest and greatest web standards. He's pretty active on twitter and likes to meet new designer and coders to collaborate with on fun projects.