Quickie Business Card Design III

I got some more critical comments from some designer friends of mine. I've come to the conclusion that I have to cut still more stuff out of the card to clean it up. While it's nice to make a business card into a miniature poster, you nevertheless have to make some pretty brutal edits to keep it clean and usable.

The primary functions of a business card, as far as I'm concerned, are the following:

1. Provide contact information in a convenient form...
2. In such a way that the recipient remembers who you are.

You could call 2 "branding", but being memorable is the minimum requirement. I don't really have a brand for myself yet.

Anyway, here are the Generation 6 card variations, taking many people's comments into account. The horizontal format comment I think was actually important. Another friend suggested some wording changes, so I tried them. Finally I reduced the amount of information, so I had more white space to play with.

I'm leaning toward the horizontal version with the larger "dot story" and the arrow strokes. It needs to be tweaked a bit proportionally, but otherwise it's my current favorite.

Designs inevitably get to a point where you can no longer tell what's better or worse. I'll probably choose the most shocking one (not that any of them are shocking anymore) and go with that one. What do you guys think? I need to walk away from these for a couple days.

For reference, here's yesterday's Generation 5 card design:

The BOLD versus NO BOLD Controversy

This issue keeps coming up...see Josh's comment. Although I like the bold, I had to see what it really looked like:

Which looks better? I'm curious what people think.

The ARROWS versus NO ARROWS Controversy

I like the bit of organic "boxes and arrows" feel that these brush strokes add to an otherwise sterile vector piece. It draws in a bit of the paper-based stuff I like to do also. But someone suggested that they weren't necessary, so let's have a look:

Opinions?

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Continued in Quickie Business Card Design IV