Small Business By Design

Just wanted to publish a quick post to let everyone know that Strong Design Studios just redesigned and relaunched our website. If you get a chance, check it out atwww.strongdesignstudios.com

I recently posted a link to several sweet business card sites. Shortly after, a client came to me looking to have her acting/modeling business card redesigned. When she asked to have her headshot featured on the card, my mind got to cooking that the MOO photocards could be a perfect fit for this project! Check out the finished product!

The paper is nice and thick and the images are vivid, however, before you design your card make sure to check out the template restrictions and the color palette for the information. You can be really creative with these cards, but you just need to know the rules before you begin.

I have recently discovered my neighborhood library. In fact, I recently checked out 20 (yes, thats twenty) exciting new books that mainly focus on innovative marketing insight and strategy! Unfortunately, reading each of those books thoroughly is proving to be a slightly more time-consuming task than I thought. Although I have barely made a dent in my huge stack of books, I decided that it might be a beneficial thing to document the ones I find to be helpful for all the small business owners out there. So, here is what I’ve got so far for your reading pleasure!

Blog Wild! — By Andy Wibbels
Well, won’t Andy just love to see that I’m blogging about his book about blogging. This book was an incredibly fast and informative read (seriously, you could read it in an afternoon). He writes very simply so even the most novice blogger can understand and gives tons of sources for ideas and inspiration, and his main focus is on blogging for the purpose of building your small business. You can log on to some of his noted blogs and see for yourself how other businesses are getting the word out for cheap using their blogs.

The Leader in You — Dale Carnegie, Stuart Levine and Michael Crom
Ok, I won’t beat around the bush. This book is a tough read… but its a GOOD read. Its not a new book. The copy I read was published in 1993, but the content is completely valuable today. The book goes over several key leadership principles of some pretty monumental company leaders. You might think your are going to learn keen business strategy in this book, however, the principles outlined in the book come much closer to providing a simple guide for how people want to be treated, and through the proper treatment, people can be shaped and motivated to join your business vision. This book is a classic for any business person, and it really touts the high standards of customer and staff service that sometimes seems to be disappearing in this day and age.

I just stumbled on an awesome article that outlines some of the coolest business card ideas! I thought that it would be cool to show you my favorite of the bunch. A lot of these versioned ideas would be absolutely awesome for photographers, graphic designers or interior designers. Check them out below:

Brooklyn Social Cards
These business cards are letterpressed and oh-so-beautiful. (Style #5 is phenomenal!) They are slightly more expensive, but at the same time, they project a much more expensive, luxurious look as well. 

Moo
This company makes fabulous products too! You can customize the backs of your cards with several different designs, uploaded by you to your flickr account. They also offer a host of other customizable products, such as mini cards, postcards and sweet sticker books! Plus their price-points are CHEAP! When the time comes to reorder my business cards, I will definitely be trying out their product.

ShineBox
Do you ever have to deal with your business cards getting stuck together, or even worse, falling all over? Not with ShineBox’s padded business cards! You can choose to have them perforated to tear off or you can even just have them scored so they become a little book. Imagine producing a mini portfolio booklet to leave with your prospects. Plus they also offer a larger, postcard-sized version of this product as well.

Black Bird Letterpress
More, beautiful letterpressed business cards. It looks like this company offers customer orders as well. Who doesn’t love the look and feel of thick, stamped cardstock? 

Brick House Paperie
Ok, so this company doesn’t necessarily offer a business card product, but wouldn’t these stamps create a beautiful, low-budget business card? (especially the ones available as embossers!) You could also continue to use the stamps on your letterhead, business cards and notecards to continue your branding in an easy, economical way!