8 great uses of typography in business cards

Creating a great business card is all about playing to your strengths, and conveying what you’re about in both the text and the design itself. 

So while illustrators’ business cards should almost certainly feature some form of illustration (and possibly some brilliant free script fonts, too), those who prize typography might prefer to create a card that takes inspiration from the world of type. If that’s you, then get ready to inspired by these eight gorgeous business cards. 

Meanwhile, if there’s a type-centred business card design you think we’ve missed, please let us know in the comments at the bottom of the page.

01. We Are Big Chill

For decades, The Big Chill was an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy that drew people from across the UK and beyond to sit in muddy fields and, like, bliss out, man. But in 2011, Big Chill hung up its wellies and re-engineered its brand to develop drinking venues across London and Bristol.

Zip Design was tasked with creating a new visual identity for The Big Chill, and gave it a fresh friendly look and feel that reflected its heritage as well as appealing to newer audiences. We love these colourfully lo-fi business cards, featuring a bespoke typeface; you can see more of the branding here.

02. Next

Many companies have sported the name Next, from Steve Jobs’ 1990s computer firm to the high-street clothing chain in the UK. But it was an interactive studio called Next that asked Polish agency Mamastudio Design Agency to design their new visual identity, and here are the stunningly effective business cards they created. 

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The concept was inspired by the company name and how they approach their work. “The role of NEXT is to see what has yet to be considered,” said a press statement by Mamastudio. “They must always know what’s around the corner and how to envision what’s next. Their new identity had to include a logo that looked forward to what was beyond the page or monitor.” You can see more of the Next branding here.

03. RRZ

Moodley Brand Identity, a strategic brand consulting and design agency based in Austria, are the people behind these coolly minimalist, typography-led business cards. They were created for IT company Raiffeisen Rechenzentrum and stand testimony to the idea that the simplest ideas can often be the most effective, not to mention the most beautiful. You can see the rest of the branding here. 

04. Yaili

Panamanian-Portuguese, born in the USSR, and living in London since 2008, Yaili (aka Inayaili de León Persson) is a lead web designer at Canonical, the company that delivers Ubuntu. Another elegantly simplistic design, this delightful letterpress business card was printed by Post Mark Designs.

05. Airluxe

Airluxe creates videos for the real estate industry using drones to capture aerial shots. When you’re involved in such new and disruptive technology, it’s good for your branding to convey a touch of the comfortably familiar, and that’s certainly the case here. Typographer and graphic designer Steve Wolf has effortlessly combined a feel of vintage typography with a sense of the new in these business card designs, which also boast a distinctive and strikingly original colour scheme.

06. Penn Co

To create these stunning business cards for a Pennsylvania wood crafting shop, Texas-based designer Kyle Anthony Miller used screenprinted and blind letterpress on French Paper's Black Muscletone, then hand sanded them to give each card a worn look. A truly unique treatment that adds a whole new dimension to the vintage typography style of the design.

07. FZ Media

Lettering and typography specialist Adam Trageser created these business cards for his nine-to-five employer, FZ Media Design Inc, a design agency in Yardley, Pennsylvania, printed on 220# Lettra fluorescent white. “Inspired by our passion for timeless detail and love for typography, our business cards embody the creativity and craft we strive for on a daily basis,” the agency says. 

08. Tom Lane

“It's handy having contacts in the playing card world!” says Tom Lane, aka Ginger Monkey, an independent graphic designer, lettering artist, and illustrator who lives and works in Liverpool. He printed these distinctively sumptuous personal business cards in bronze metallic ink on authentic playing card stock. You can see more of Lane’s playing card work here.