Five Ways to Use a Logo in Your Business Card Design

Ever seem restricted when positioning logos on your clients' business card designs? Designers often make the easy choice of placing the logo in one of the card's corners and moving on. Your options aren't limited to those four obscure regions and trying new things can jazz up a business card tremendously.

Here are the top 5 ways to incorporate a logo into your client's business card designs:

1. Go vertical

If you're designing a vertical business card, try using a large logo at the top or bottom and take up as much as half of the card space with it. If done correctly, this technique can lend a sense of confidence, stability and a bold attitude to your client. If you're running a branded campaign, this is also a great way to increase brand recognition since straying from the norm with a large logo will stick in your clients' customers' minds.

2.Super-size it

One great technique for incorporating a logo into your client's business card design is to use the logo as the background for the entire card. This works especially well if the logo is two colors, and there is a distinct separation between those colors. Make the logo so large that it doesn't fit on the card, and the card's background becomes just the two colors with a dividing line or wave that cuts the card in two. Now, you can put different information in each colored region, and use the complete image of a smaller logo in one of the traditional corner regions.  

3. Fade away

This technique is similar to No. 2, but this time you're going to make sure the logo is small enough to fit on the card, perhaps in the center. Now, apply a 50 percent (or more) transparency to the logo and use it as a backdrop for the rest of the card's elements. Even better, see if you can incorporate some of the other business card elements in with the logo's layout. If your logo has a square cut out on the top right, for instance, it would be a great place to insert your client's photo.

4. Lights, camera, interaction

If you want to make your logo seem more like it's part of the action, have it interact with other elements. Photos are a great opportunity for this (one idea was outlined in No. 3). You could have your client leaning against the logo, holding it up over his head, or have the logo hovering over the palm of your client's outstretched hand.

5. Picture it

Use caution with this, but if you can find a way to work your client's logo in through a photo - and it still looks great - it can help the business card truly stand out. A few examples include the neon sign in a photo of a trendy night club, the logo on a corporate polo shirt, or even a tattoo if you're designing a card for a tattoo parlor. Get creative and experiment, but only use this technique if the outcome looks absolutely perfect.