The business of business cards
Business card design and printing
What small card plays a big role for virtually every business? It’s the business card! (Aptly named, right?) Actually, business cards are critical to building and maintaining a market presence for all sorts of businesses.
Business cards are convenient. Usually no larger than 2 inches by 3.5 inches, these little guys can go just about anywhere – wallets, pockets, bulletin boards, countertop displays…you get the idea. They’re one of the fastest, easiest, most professional ways to share your business information to clients, partners, and prospects alike. And you’ll never know when or where you’ll have to share your business card with a new contact – don’t go anywhere without ’em!
Business cards do wonders for networking. You can easily exchange all sorts of contact info, from your phone number and email to your website and social media pages. Nowadays you can even include high-tech features, such as QR codes, that can direct smart phones to even more information about you and your business.
Business cards also play a distinctive role in advertising. A well-designed card that includes your business’s branding, logo, and other identifiable images and info will make you stand out when you share them with your contacts. They’re a crucial step forward in building brand awareness and market presence as you maintain and grow your business.
Did we say well-designed? That’s where things get real interesting. Business card design has grown leaps and bounds since the days of boring little black-and-white rectangles. There are virtually endless cool new ways to design a business card, including any number of colors, graphics, fonts, tag lines, shapes, sizes, or even unique materials from which to choose.
The point is, even business card design should be clever and creative. Business cards can do more than simply exchange contact info. They create great first impressions and they help your business stand out in your market. They also bolster brand awareness, especially when your business card incorporates the same logos and branding as your other marketing media.
If your business needs new business cards, or if you would simply like to redesign your old business cards, contact O2 Creative today. We can work with you to design truly distinctive cards that will reflect the personality of your business and really separate you from the rest of the crowd.
To contact O2 Creative, give us a call at 970-726-8021 or email info@o2creative. Or, just stop by our office some time, and we’ll give you one of our business cards!
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The rap on vehicle wraps
Have you seen a wrapped vehicle around town lately? Odds are you have – it’s difficult to miss them!
Aptly named, a vehicle wrap is a custom design printed on special vinyl material. This vinyl is precision-cut and expertly applied, or “wrapped,” to the exact dimensions of a particular vehicle. Vinyl wraps cover every little corner and curve of the vehicle so perfectly that it’s often mistaken for a custom paint job.
A vinyl wrap is better than a custom paint job, though, in several ways. It’s much less expensive, it’s easier to apply, it actually protects your paint job underneath, and the vinyl can be easily removed or changed if you ever decide to change the colors or graphics on your vehicle.
What sorts of colors and graphics are available, you ask? Well, just about anything! We can design a wrap that includes your logos, taglines, contact info, colors, images, or whatever else you’d like on your vehicle. Yup, that’s right – we can turn your vehicle into an eye-catching advertisement on wheels! Everywhere your vehicle goes, so will the promotional power of your distinctive vehicle wrap. Few other advertisements can organically create attention as well as a vehicle wrap.
We’re big proponents of using vehicle wraps as promotions, too. A vehicle wrap is an advertisement that goes everywhere you go! It’s a great way to gain brand awareness and generate buzz within a community. A wrap is always working for you, even when your vehicle is parked. Vehicle wraps get you noticed!
And by “vehicle wrap,” we mean just about any sort of vehicle – cars, trucks, vans, trailers, you name it! We can professionally wrap a single vehicle, or an entire fleet. We are also able to create partial wraps or individual graphics as well. Your wrap can be as simple as a logo displayed on your door, or as extensive as a complete wrap that creates a whole new look for your vehicle.
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If you or your business is interested in vehicle wraps, contact O2 Creative today. Give us a call at 970-726-8021, or email us at [email protected].
The New Office!
Yes, we have moved! After spending most of the long weekend packing and unpacking, we are finally settling into the new space. Our location is now 345 Zerex Street, on the corner of Highway 40 and Eisenhower in Fraser. Last Tuesday was the first day we were officially open for business in the new location. To celebrate the new office’s grand opening, we felt a toast was in order, so we enjoyed morning mimosas toasted in oh-so-classy red party cups.
When we began our search for a new office we wanted a better location, more space, and more features. So far, we’ve gotten all that and more.
Our new office affords us a location with even more exposure. We’ve been in downtown Fraser for a while now, but now we’re even that much more downtown. We have a sweet new sign on the awning over our front door, displaying big and bright over Eisenhower. A second sign is also in the works, soon to be displaying right along the highway for all to admire.
The new space also actually has more space. The old cabin office had its charms, but this place feels like it’s at least twice as big. Between the wide room, lots of windows, and more actual square footage, we now have more space to stretch – both our legs, and our ideas.
With our new office comes new everything – new furniture, new decorations, a new coat of bright green paint on the walls, even a new bed for the pups.
Our new space has new features as well. We have a large conference table for important meetings and brainstorm sessions.
We also have a lounge area in the corner, complete with a big cushy couch, for those times when we want a meeting to be a little more comfy.
Indeed, we found our better location, bigger space, and new features. It’s even starting to feel like the office we wanted all along, though we’re still putting some finishing touches on the place. Even though there’s still a little unpacking and decorating to do, the office is just beginning to have that familiar, broken-in sort of feel.
So, now that we’re just getting settled in, we’re pretty sure the only thing our new location is missing is…you! Most importantly, we wanted our new office to be a space we could share. We wanted somewhere for us to sit down and comfortably collaborate with clients and share stories with friends. So seriously – stop by and say hello! (mimosas optional).
O2 Creative Design, your Website Design, Graphic Design, all in one marketing stop!
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Livin’ the Pug Life
At O2 Creative, we’re animal lovers. Anyone who has ever visited us in the O2 office quickly realizes one thing – the dogs are in charge here. Wylie, Sophie, and Thumbelina roam throughout our office, setting the professional tone for the workday. From early Monday until late Friday, the pups are in the office, regardless of rain, wind, snow, sleet, sickness, or even a bad hair day.
The morning usually begins by responding to lots of important emails.
They eagerly await the arrival of clients, business contacts, and FedEx deliveries. Well, they’re mostly just eager for the FedEx guy, because he gives them treats.
They stay so busy, there’s no time at all to get out of the office. Well…okay, maybe there’s just enough time for a nice walk…
But they can’t walk for too long. Gotta get back to the office – they have to sit in on lots of important meetings.
The pooch’s greatest professional strength would have to be their teamwork abilities. They put their heads together to tackle some of the biggest group projects…like napping (which is coincidentally another professional strength of theirs).
At this point, perhaps you’re thinking all this puppy in the office business is silly – that it’s not actually hard work, it’s just the proverbial piece of cake…
But, we assure you, these pups all take their jobs very seriously. It’s all stone-faced business as usual. Does Wylie look like he’s joking around?
To meet these pups in person, stop by and say hello at the O2 Creative office. You can also follow Pugs and Buggs on Facebook.
Click here for our next blog – Goodbye to the cabin office!
The benefits of hiring a graphic designer
Some businesses may frequently wonder whether hiring a graphic designer is worth it. They’re usually concerned about professional design work costing too much, or perhaps they feel they should simply do the design work themselves.
Believe it or not, though, hiring a professional designer might actually save you money in the long run. It’s also even more likely to save you another valuable resource: time. And a designer can help you focus the vision you have for your business. Good designers use their expertise to help you create recognizable graphics that make you stand out, communicate your value to your market, and make your business look even more polished and professional.
First of all, hiring a graphic designer really can save money. Sure, you can try to design your own graphics, but if you don’t know how to prepare a graphic for a printer, the cost of revising and reprinting your materials can quickly become even pricier than simply hiring a designer right from the start. Designers have the know-how to make sure graphics and marketing materials are designed and prepared correctly the first time. (If you aren’t familiar with terms like bleed marks, cropping, or CMYK, we recommend consulting a professional designer before trying to produce designs).
Graphic designers can also save you time. Many businesses pride themselves on self-sufficiency, but trying to do design work can quickly become a time-consuming frustration if you don’t know what you’re doing. Say, for instance, your plumbing broke. You could spend all the time and effort trying to fix the plumbing yourself, sure. However, if you’ve never done any plumbing work before, simply hiring a plumber who already has the knowledge and tools is usually a much more cost- and time-efficient way to get the problem fixed.
A good designer has the skills and experience, as well as the industry-standard design software and programs, to do even better work in even less time. Let’s face it – time is at a premium for most businesses. Your time is best spent focusing on the operations of your business, not trying to create graphics that a designer could do better, faster, and cheaper. Hiring a professional to do design work for you means you can spend your precious time on other important matters, like managing your business, meeting with clients, and fixing the plumbing.
A graphic designer can also help improve the look and feel of your business. A professionally trained designer with state-of-the-art programs and resources can develop much more polished graphics, logos, and branding. These are resources not available to you if you chose not to work with a professional designer. The result is a much better visual representation of your business than if you were to simply throw something together using ClipArt in Word.
That’s what a designer has been professionally trained to do – create quality graphics and materials that get you recognized. Good designers are good communicators who are able to convey your business’s values and ideas through graphics and images. Good designers get it right the first time, too, so you don’t have to worry about an inferior design or costly revisions during the print and production stages.
If you are thinking about having design work done, get in touch with us at O2 Creative. Our talented, experienced designers are happy to work with you through every stage of the design process. We’ll help you efficiently create designs that make you look more professional, communicate your value, and gain you recognition in your market.
Click here to read about Digital Media vs Print Media
Contact O2 Creative today at 970-726-8021 or at [email protected]
Check out Christine Parizo’s article here for more info.