Design
Avoid Clutter with These Business Card Layout Ideas
  by:  |  Jun 15, 2009
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Last updated on March 16th, 2020 at 05:19 pm

Clutter is the downfall of most designers. It’s a state, a desperate state, one where too much “stuff” essentially stops a viewer from identifying what’s important. The more “stuff” in an environment, the harder it is to draw attention to a particular object, like your name, company logo or contact information.

So, how do you stop clutter and keep your business card design clean and concise? With these business card layout ideas:

Layout Tips for Clean Business Cards

Minimize Your Use of Color

Keep your use of color to a minimum. The more color variables on a card, the more cluttered it becomes. Putting a photo on the back of a card to showcase your work is still one of those professional business card layout ideas, but don’t try to complicate that by laying text on top of it.

Less Items, Less Clutter

Some of the best business card layout ideas are the simplest – lots of white space, a minimal amount of items and just clean, clear text. It may not be flashy, but it’s definitely clutter-free and easy to read.

Avoid Colored Text on a Colored Background

Ideally, you want the text on your business cards to be legible, so try to keep colored text off of colored backgrounds. Instead, you want high contrast for high legibility like black on white or white on red.

Keep it Organized

Lots of “stuff” isn’t always a bad thing, provided that it’s organized. So, how do you keep your business card elements organized? Simple, the same way you might organize your desk or closet – group like items together, align certain items (like your text), don’t overlap important items and create a general sense of order.

Highlight the Important Stuff

Too often, I see business cards where the focus is the design and not the contact information. Well, guess what? The purpose of a business card is to convey basic contact information and while an interesting design might grab someone’s attention, that’s not always a good thing – particularly if they have to search out your info.

One of the best business card layout ideas I can give you is to always keep the purpose of your cards in mind. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your creativity, it just means keeping the focus on what’s pertinent – the information.


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