Printed Business Cards

An online retailer faces a number of obstacles in the business world, including projecting a traditional business presence in a virtual world. The online bookseller or virtual bookshop is a different place that the corner bookshop. But book lovers are the same no matter where they shop. There a number of things to keep in mind when designing the business card for the online bookseller.

There are a number of different types of book seller and the card should reflect the specialty or genre of focus. For instance, a comic book retailer would have a very different design than an antiquarian or rare book dealer. Choose a background design that provides the most focused visual for your particular book selling audience.

Color should also be appropriate to the book selling niche and convey the essence of the genre rather than the literal color of the dust jackets. Think browns and creams for rare books, natural colors for green living books, primary colors for comic books, pastels for small children’s books, purples, blues, greens and reds for older children, pink for intimate, yellows and greens for gardening or outdoors etc. The best way to decide which colors to use would be to think of your particular genre and see what color associations immediately come to mind.

Font and type style reflect both the genre and the overall image of the bookseller. Serious and sophisticated should opt for heavy engraved fonts in traditional styles. Fun but enthusiastic bookstores should opt for rounded edges, slanted fonts or creative type setting. The size and color of the letters should make the information easy to read against any background design. Choose the color that “pops” the best not the color you like the best.

Books of course should appear on the business card. This sounds obvious but oftentimes is the missing piece in the virtual selling world: the visual reminder of goods. Choose appropriate clip art or make your own.

Remember, with online selling it’s about clear direct short communication. Emphasize the online presence through websites and coupon codes but don’t forget the books. They are the most important thing to the customer and the seller after all.

Filed under: Business Card Help on October 19th, 2009