Here’s another thing: I think it is understandable for me to have “mistaken” Mach Five as also being the name of your company, because, frankly, companies have logos and individuals don’t. Most customers don’t want Prince doing their graphics design, and those who would generally wouldn’t have the money to make it worth while.
I understand that, as a graphics designer, you do have to make your card memorable… but right now the impression of both logos is universally awful.
I didn’t think it was necessary to include a mission statement on my business card.
Typically, I give out my business card when I get into a conversation with someone about services that I could offer them. I don’t just drop them out of a blimp en masse and hope my message gets across. Those who get my business card do, because I can do something for them.
I’m still having a hard time figuring out what so unclear on the old card, despite the asinine design. I think it communicates “graphics design” pretty clearly, so even if I gave my card to someone and they forgot getting it, those words should spark their memory sufficiently.
Also, my business cards serve a dual-purpose. They’re not only for making business contacts, but personal contacts. Networking, as it were. I find by giving out all of my contact information, no matter how trivial, it makes it easier for the person recieving my card to contact me. Once again, I’m not presenting a corporate face, so I’m not limited here to black and white, “splashes” of color, and simple typefaces.
I really think this will make a lot more sense, as I said, in context, once I have some designs hammered out utilizing the logo. Either way, nothing’s concrete at this point, and if the reaction I recieve from my design friends ends up anything like the reaction here, I’ll quickly return to my Microsoft Word Art drawing board.
I must be dizzy from having skipped breakfast and lunch, but I could have sworn that your biz card didn’t show your real name or job description when I first looked at it. That’s it then…time for a nourishing meal break.
Mission statement, no. Some sense of what it is you do, yes. If your business name already gives that information, then you don’t need to add more information. For example, my company’s name, Murer Consultants, and my title below my name on my business card, “Senior Consultant” twice conveys to the card’s reader the information that we’re prophets of doom.
Without anything else on the card, however, “Mach 5,” as stated in a lot of other posts in this thread, doesn’t suggest anything but a razor. So yeah, if you’re going to use either “Mach 5” or your given name, you really need to add “graphic designs” or something to that effect, so that the person receiving the card remembers what it is you do the next time they look at it.
If you really want to be a graphic designer (I’m talking professional stuff, not “Mom & Pop Cavendish’s Online Elderberry Jam Stand” logos) understand that you rarely get the chance to be creative. You have to give clients what they want – which is almost never, ever something creative and wacky – it’s usually “make it look like the Iomega logo” or “I want something black and white with Zapf Chancery in ALL CAPS”. Frankly, I don’t do much contract design work any more, because I’d rather do something creative. And if you can’t handle the friendly criticism related here, clients are gonna eat you alive. The “I don’t like it but I don’t know why” comment is something you get beaten savagely about the head with on a daily basis as a designer. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.
[size=2]I will admit, though, clients loooove shiny beveled chrome stuff, especially when it’s their logo. If you can make it spin and fly around while playing Thus Spake Zarathustra, all the better.[/size]
Jason, the first card actually does say “Graphics Designer” on it. It’s up at the very top left hand corner, in white letters near a gigantic upper border of white and dwarfed to the left by a huge, attention grabbing logo. I don’t blame you for missing it - I missed it when I was hammering out my first post. It’s little things like that (putting a white font in close proximity with a white border that causes a viewer to subconsciously blend the two together and a logo that omnivorously draws attention away from everything else by its very garishness) that would really prevent me from hiring someone with a card like that as a graphics designer.
My eyes, my eyes!!! Stop it now! I simply can’t believe how often I see that formatting used.
Your card should be all black with MACH 5 in raised 12 point Times Roman (also in black). In small silver letters on the bottom should be your phone number and the words: discretion assured. *
[size=1]*Ahargghh! Just kiddin’ matey!
[/size]
Oh dear god. After the pummeling these guys have delivered, I really needed a good laugh. Tyrion’s stock just skyrocketed.
The second design seems awfully bland.
The first one is okay, but lose the green/black grid, and replace the chrome with a nice navy-blue or something.
Probably yank the handle from your name and put it in as your graphic design company name or something.
I’m not sure what your card is trying to convey here. Are you a graphic designer, or a PC technician? The contact info also seems rather unfocused, with random AIM and ICQ contact info, along with a marginally-related URL. If you’re going to try milk the whole Mach5 thing, you need to be consistent. What’s “dairyland” anyway? Those must be some fast cows…
[size=1]Aye, matey![/size]
These are very good points, but I was responding more to Mach’s last post in which he suggested that those who get his card already know what it is he does. Well, those who get my business card already know what it is I do too, but I assume that they, like me, get a LOT of business cards in the course of their work. So I don’t what them pulling out my card at some later date and wondering, “Now what does that guy do again?”
This doesn’t mean you have to convey more information than necessary. Our business card, for example, says “consultants,” not “health care consultants.” That extra information isn’t necessary because everyone who gets the card is already in the health care industry.
So are you naming yourself after Speed Racer’s car? No offense, but I meet someone who tells me his legal name is Mach5 and I think he’s a flake. Love to gab with you, but I don’t want to give you my money, because you’ve named yourself after a cartoon car or a razor.
Just ask yourself: “would one of those 3dmark forum weirdos make something like this?”
I didn’t know Tom Chick and Sean Penn had a baby.
So maybe if, instead of the Zarathustra theme like Sparky suggested, his card played “Go Speed Racer”?
Yeah, well, I hadn’t heard of Speed Racer when I decided on this name back in '94. It was sheer shitty luck on my part that Gilette decided to name a razor that, and there happened to be a cartoon a decade before that had a car with that moniker.
Regardless of those associations, it doesn’t bother me. I mean, it irks me to get that same question every time, but I am Mach Five, as retarded and “flakey” as that sounds.
And I do not look like Sean Penn.
Take it back. :P
Oh, and I will go back to the drawing board. Thanks for the feedback, ladies and gents.
This could very well take the cake for most inane thread evar!
–Dave
On the contrary, I think this thread just might’ve saved someone’s life.
I don’t understand… why is your “real” name Mach5. What do you mean by that? You mean legally?
Some day, yeah. I’ve been planning for some time to get my name changed to that, it’s just a matter of when. I haven’t quite pinned that down yet, but it may not be for another year or two.
I was saying earlier that it’s my personal name as opposed to a company name. There were some people under the impression that Mach Five is the name of my company, which it’s not, since there’s no company.