Continuing the development of my business card from the other day. Logo I developed this as my logo.
I started off by looking at how the letters say next to each other. Obviously they can join onto each other like shown on the left, but that's pretty boring. I looked at using one of the angled lines on the M for the spine of the B by shearing the B, but that made the B look elongated and ugly, as well as the left side of the M looking like it stuck out a bit.
To try and get round this I looked at adding the second vertical back into the M, but that created an A shape in the middle, which could have been confusing. Had I had a middle name that begun with A, this would've been pretty perfect. I then looked at removing that area completely and trying to work a bit more with negative space, which looked better.
I used the pen tool to go over the line, as this allows me to keep a consistent line width, as well as making it thinner to make it more elegant. But I noticed that it was looking quite rectangular and less square than I wanted it to, so I made it narrower and put it inside a rounded square. I used a rounded square because of the curves on the B. Making the letters thinner made the shapes of them more distinguishable, but the box round it made it more complicated than it needed to be, so I got rid of the box, and was happy with it.
How This Affected My Card I added the logo next to my name, as positioning it there makes it clearer what it is. Because of how thin the lines in the logo are, I decided to change the font on the rest of the card from Helvetic Neue to Gotham, as the more rounded natures of the letters work better with my logo. My name is in light to make it less bold than the logo, and the rest of the text is in thin to make it even less bold, as this helps the hierarchy. I increased the size of the smaller text to make it more legible, after messing around with point sizes I found that by having the smallest text a 7.35pt, it was vertically aligned perfectly with my logo, which made me very happy as it frames it quite well in your eye.
I wrote yesterday about how I was going to use black paper for the back of my business card. Having looked at how this would look compared to white paper, I've now changed my mind, as I think the black is too overpowering, and the white works better for continuity.
I overlooked the fact that I'd need a logo for my personal branding. So I had a look at some existing logos on Behance and Pinterest for personal branding. I was particularly interested in ones that use initials, as that makes sense to me. I notice that the ones I like tend to be in a square ration or very close to it, and only use two colours, black and white in particular in most cases. Of the two that use colour, one will predominantly displayed on a screen, and the other uses foil blocking, which is a process I don't deem to be necessary for a business card for myself because of it's high end and expensive connotations. It's going to be important to consider how the letters M and B can fit within each other or join together, which is how the black and white logos here have created abstract shapes to make them more interesting. I notice with the MHV one that you can't help but think of HMV because of how similar the style of the lettering is. This is something I'll need to consider, as there is a childrens games company called MB that I'll have to avoid confusion with, although hopefully this shouldn't be difficult at all.
Carrying on from what I did yesterday, I looked into how I could make my business card stand out and be a bit different to a regular business card.
I was given the below present for Christmas to bring back to my house in Leeds as I can't have a fish tank there.
It gave me the idea that in the smaller column of my business card I could create a little scene that makes use of the 3 layers of fold I have, and this would really go along with the concept of background, mid-ground and foreground.
These two business cards for photographers gave me the idea that I could print on acetate to create see through areas, which means that when the folded areas build up on top of each other, the areas that have the scene printed on will look more like a foreground, mid-ground and background. This would however make the colour in the other areas inconsistent because of how the translucency would build up, and that's not something I want to happen. PHOTO OF PRECISION PRINT BUSINESS CARD The business card that I kept from when we visited Precision Print last year gave me the idea that I could sandwich the acetate between two layers of thin paper, as this would only give me the issues of translucency where I wanted them for the effect. This would make it more difficult to fold though, and so it's important that the other layers are only thin paper, to make it still foldable. Having three layers will make the business card sturdy.
I extended the InDesign document to 3 pages, 1 for each of the stocks. The left one will be the white paper, the middle being the acetate, and the right one being the back of the black paper. The black lines and squares will be guides for where I have to trim down the material or cut out sections.
These are the three vectors I made for the business card. I wouldn't normally be up for making such a complicated vector such as the plant, which is why I kept it to one colour. I learned a couple of tricks in illustrator while doing these, especially useful was how to use the Live Paint tool, which is incredibly useful. I decided to use a blue tang and clown fish as these are well known and recognisable fish from Finding Nemo, which has connotations of light-heartedness due it being predominantly a childs film.
The result of all this is that my business card will look something like this when it's flat, which I'm pretty happy with, I think it communicates what I wanted it too, although I feel like it will do so to a much better extent in a physical printed format. I do feel like I need a logo though, but that's something I'll address tomorrow.
On the basis that it's important that my business card isn't going end up as plain white with black text and a picture of a fish in the corner, I planned out a layout to make sure that is related to the concept. I decided that I'd use the golden ratio for my grid, as a more rigid square grid doesn't fit with the connotations of fish. At the same time, the idea that the golden ratio is meant to be the most visually pleasing proportion is a good way to represent a graphic designer.
The above shows what my business card will be in its most basic form, this is its starting point. Since my talk with John a while ago I've still had very few thoughts on what should go beneath my name, so I just decided that Graphic Designer is probably the best thing to put. This annoyed me though, so I decided to add the line "But I like fish too" as a way of distracting myself from this whilst not doing anything that wouldn't make it immediately obvious that I do graphic design. Seeing this and thinking about the idea of a background, middle-ground and foreground, I thought about being able to do some folding within my business card, shown below.
This is roughly how it would look from the front, with there being a fold that gives a separate section for the three rows of the card.
On the back of the card there could be some sort of vector image of a plant as a way of making sure that's the back of the card to avoid any confusions like my housemate and I did with the evolution print business card.
Looking at it from above really creates the background, middle-ground and foreground, and due to the way the paper is folded, there are some plain areas that are hidden when you look at it from the front. These areas are good for having some sort of images of fish in, as it allows me to use images of fish but in a less obvious way, as well as having a creative reference to the idea of giving fish more room to swim in.
I really liked this idea, and it's something I want to take forward, so I've created another document with a grid that takes the folds into account, and this is what I'll be working on.
After looking at a few business cards in my last post, I've been thinking over the past few days about what my business card should say about me, and how I should try and use it to distinguish myself. How I Reached My Concept This Christmas my younger sister who I don't live with was given a fish tank for, as she always enjoyed seeing the fish that I kept whenever she saw me at my house before I came to university. After Christmas dinner, as everyone else in the family was asleep, my dad and I were setting up the tank for her as she distracted the dog. But it dawned on me just how much I know about how to keep fish, which, is a lot harder than it seems, as was the basis of some of my projects last year after the christmas project (brief 3 and brief 4 in OUGD405). I was initially interested in fish because of their pretty colours and patterns, which is why I think this is a valid thing to base by brandings concept around, but now my understanding of the subject is something that is quite niche and interesting is something I could use to distinguish myself. It is important however that the design of the branding remains the important thing, as this would promote me primarily as a designer and secondly as someone who knows about fish, which is what the aim is. My Concept In Detail When setting up a tank and buying decorations and ornaments in detail it's important to consider how much room the fish need to swim in, and so it's important to consider the tank as a background, mid-ground and a foreground sou you don't end up putting a massive plant in the middle of the tank, which would reduce the swimming area greatly, as the diagrams below show.
If you consider this as a birds eye view of a tank, the green areas show tall plants, the grey show mid-height ornaments such as a skull or a shipwreck etc, the brown ones show small ornaments such as rocks. Positioning things randomly like this gives 3 main areas for fish to swim (shown by the red arrows), but two of those would be hidden from view by the plants, so you'd hardly even see them.
Establishing a foreground, mid-ground and background allows you to position the ornaments to give the fish much bigger areas to swim in, as well as making them more visible. This is done by putting the bigger things in the background, keeping the foreground empty, and using the mid-ground for anything else. Understanding how this works and thinking about it in order to get the best result is very similar to understanding layout, grid and hierarchy in design and how they can lead your eye around a page, which is something we looked at in quite some detail last year.
The fact that I've been able to identify this similarity suggests to me that I know enough about it to make this concept work well, so this is something I'm going to look at moving forward.
Having looked at what I don't want to do, I started looking at examples of business cards that I think worked well it terms of successfully communicating the relevant information in a memorable way. Despite me saying that I wouldn't want to think someone had employed me based on my business card or something like that, it is important that the business card backs up what is good about you. I have quite a relaxed approach to life, and I've looked at some business cards that show their businesses in a light-hearted manner.
The fact that the wine stains are all individual and hand done gives the cards a more personal feel.
Using a skeuomorphic business card shows a light-hearted and fun side to a brand.
Having an interactive element provides something more memorable, which makes the business card stand out.
Having something like this that is always changing is something that keeps the business card relevant, although it doesn't look very structurally secure, and looks quite uneconomic.
Something like this simple but with a subtle and recognisable reference works quite well because of how instantaneous its impact on you is.
I got the photo's for evolution prints business card from a friend who is doing a work placement there. He asked what I wanted it for, and I explained that I wanted to use the back of the card as an example of what I wanted to avoid in my own branding. This is the evolution print business card.
I was having a discussion with my housemate last night about which side is the front and which side is the back. He argued that the circle was the front, as it would get your attention, and you'd turn it over, I said that if I was handed a card with a big black circle on it, I'd think "what the hell is this", and turn it over feeling confused. I said that if you were handed it with the information facing you, you would immediately know it was a business card, and then turn it over out of intrigue. He then pointed out that this business card was for a printing company, and so is aimed at a graphic designer, not the general public, and so the abstract minimalism would probably be found just as intriguing to most graphic designers as text would anyway, and that I tend not to see things from that point of view as much as I probably should do, which is a valid point. I suppose it all comes down to knowing who you're audience is going to be. At this stage in my "career", any potential business I get will likely be from smaller shops that want a clear understanding of what I can do, not something abstract and conceptual such as this, and I probably should've explained that better in my last post.
I'm still not overly sure what to do for my personal branding, but it's getting to the point where I can't keep putting it off any more. Before I start working on it, I want to establish a clear idea of what I don't want to do, in the hope that this will make it easier for me to decide what I do want to do. The Christopher Doyle Stuff A while ago we were showed this in a PPP session. While it is pretty clever, and the full version of it was quite funny when he was talking about his girlfriend, in my opinion this isn't what personal branding is.
To me, this shows that the guy knows about and understands branding, and that's all we know. It is a literal example of personal branding. In my opinion, personal branding is more about how you act, how you think, and how you interact with people, and the printed material should only be a supporting characteristic. I wouldn't want someone to hire me for a job purely because they thought I had a nice business card, I'd want them to hire me because they thought I was the right person with the right characteristics for the job, and my business card reassured them of that. There is only so much about a person that graphic design such as this can communicate about a person. American Horror Story Last year we were shown this clip from American Psycho in COP, and, on the opposite end of the spectrum to the Christopher Doyle thing, this isn't what my opinion of personal branding either.
I think that a lot is more is of made of stock than is needed. Even the word itself annoys me to some extent, as I can't help but feel somewhat pretentious when saying it, although this is something I am getting used to. In my opinion, a business card isn't about what paper you choose, it's about what you put on the paper. I also think that a business card is probably the most important part of personal branding, and therefore is probably the thing that I should start working on first so I can use it as a reference point for the rest of the brief. Evolution Print Whilst I thought the guy who came in from Evolution Print did a pretty useful talk, their business card isn't something I find very inspiring. This is the front of it, which is fine. There's enough on it for me to not think it's anything either as boring or pretentious as the examples in the previous clip.
But this is what the back of it looks like. Completely the opposite. Obviously it's the companies logo, but you wouldn't know that from looking at it by itself. I personally feel it'd have been far better off a lot smaller on the front of the card. I suppose this is a case of knowing when to stop, and I think having a business card where the front and back clash in styles like this is an important thing to avoid.
.png&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*)
.png){kind=link}