Critque Please!

[nclester02]

Here's my first design ever, besides the ones i've created with abode classroom in a book. haha. don't hate on it, help me. i'm an aspiring designer. i'm asking the pros for a reason, creative critisism wanted! thanks guys!

nate

http://img288.imageshack.us/img288/7721/westcoastautosbusinesscardww5.th.jpg (http://img288.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westcoastautosbusinesscardww5.jpg)

[nclester02]

dont know where to start? haha

[SharkFinStudios]

2 things. Lose the underline and the gradient. The underline makes the text hard to read. The gradient... well, it's a gradient. :)

Is this for an actual business? If so then you'll want to use their logo. I would try a color combo on the car instead of that gradient.

[Riya]

I'd like to see more detail in the car.

Why all caps?

[nclester02]

when you say the gradient, im assuming you mean the outward " glow " ? no particular reason for caps, and yes this is for a newly opened business, with no logo.

MORE!

nate

[Riya]

All caps is hard to read.

[budafist]

Why have you underlined everything? If there is no reason, don't do it.

I would take out the shadow blurry effect you have behind the car. There's nothing wrong with a nice clean card.

Bring top and bottom text in - both are much too close to the edge of the card (top/bottom and sides) and I would reduce your logo to about 80% of it's current size. It is too big currently.

[nclester02]

in general, or a specific area? i didn't illustrate the car in itself, although i maybe should have. I used cs2's live trace. i'm afraid it will be too plain like it is, even after the underline and gradient removed. even more boring?

[nclester02]

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/2883/westcoastautosbusinesscardkm4.th.jpg (http://img133.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westcoastautosbusinesscardkm4.jpg)

new quick update. any better?

what else guys.

[D-Frag]

is that "Broadway" the font you are using? If its west coast, the first thing that pops in my head is a gothic font like west coast choppers. I would change the main font, but seriously, bc design is a fickle thing, one person can love it, and the next can hate it.

[nclester02]

frag, thanks. yes that is " broadway " font , unfortunatly... it's not even on the west coast. well, the west coast of florida. i'll give the gothic look font a try and post. one question for you as a seasoned pro, am i on the right track if someone were to ask me for a business card. would that be sufficient? thanks mod

nate

[budafist]

The new one is definately better but all the text is still too close to the edges. Remember that trimming sometimes goes a mm awry and then you'll be in trouble.
Bring all text closer to the middle of the design.

[cornfed]

Bring all the text in and have the top text be the same distance from the sides. As you have it in your last example, the text on the right hand side is much closer to the edge than that on the left hand side. It looks like you were trying to keep it more centered with the text just below it, but thats not working and is throwing it off.

I think you're off to a much better start than a lot of beginners I've seen. Your eagerness to "get it right" will serve you well!

[nclester02]

hey guys, heres one more shot at it.

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/nclester02/WestCoastAutosCard.jpg

anything else?

i'm not gonna rest until it's perfect. i'm still a little iffy on my text placement

nate

[nclester02]

<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/nclester02/WestCoastAutosCard.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

maybe?

[nclester02]

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6264/westcoastautoscardks4.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westcoastautoscardks4.jpg)

please work. i dont know why it's not

[nclester02]

saved the file in photoshop as a jpg and no dice? hosted on imageshack.us

[ecsyle]

I was feelin' the black and white of the car. Maybe play with that theme some more with the copy.

It's not working because you can't post HTML on the forums. Use BBCode.

[nclester02]

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4950/westcoastautoscardeb1.th.jpg (http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westcoastautoscardeb1.jpg)


try this.

[nclester02]

im trying to do what i did before damnit and it wont work

imageshack.us
use the one for forums/message boards
posting the forum link, like before
and still wont WORK!

saved as jpeg in photoshop.

help

[ecsyle]

[img]url to image here[/url]

[nclester02]

http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westcoastautoscardeb1.jpg

i hope this works

[cornfed]

It's not working. Maybe try creative forum or photobucket to upload it. Are you sure you have it set to rgb and not cmyk?

[nclester02]

here's my final copy. or at least i think. needs to be finished tonight. any advice, critques left? cleaned all the font up and went with a " wildwest " style font.

[img=http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/350/untitled1le2.th.jpg] (http://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled1le2.jpg)

thanks!

[cornfed]

I think it will look more balanced if you put the phone number under the owners name. Right now it looks cluttered on the right hand side, but moving the number should take care of that. This whole design has come a long ways since the one you first showed us!

Do you have this set up as a spot color job?

[nclester02]

i'm going to try your idea real quick. i dont mean to sound foolish, what do you mean by spot color job? only using spot colors?

haha. sorry man

nate

[nclester02]

here's another copy with cornfed's idea. which I happen to like, i just dont want people to assume they're calling the owner. you know? it's an main office number. how to set it apart?

spot colors are?

nate

[nclester02]

sorry for the mishaphttp://img271.imageshack.us/img271/5486/untitled1hw3.th.jpg (http://img271.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled1hw3.jpg)

[BJMRGTIVR6]

Good updates. I like this font choice much better.
Right now I see the company name and the car. All other info fights to get noticed next. Perhaps make your motto in italics. Overall, this looks like an ordinary card without anything to stand out too much. However, it is still better than the first go rounds. Sorry if this is of no help.


CMYK printing is what most online printers use. They take all four color plates Cyan Magenta Yellow Black and print the cards.
Spot is when you use 1 or 2 colors only. This printing is mainly done locally and can be cheaper - not always. Spot makes sure the black is black and not a build of CMYK which, if misregistered, can cause havoc, especially to black text that is not 100% black but a Rich Black made up of CMYK.

Hopefully the color explanation is understandable.

[SharkFinStudios]

Much better solution. Fonts look much better and overall the card has a much cleaner/meaner look to it. Great suggestions all around.

[nclester02]

couldn't ask for anything else. you guys are great. thanks for all the help and you will be seeing much of me!

nate

[Mad Dawg]

Is this supposed to be a business card or a poster or what. Anyway, I would lose the underline for sure. And you have to add some sort of hierarchy of type. The slogan should not be the exact same as the contact info.

[Rickster]

If I was you I should make the black on the doors and roof of the car light red, then its more realistic.. Cause I think the black must be the highlight.
If I'm wrong, sorry ;)

[Pica]

I’m looking at your slogan at the bottom of the card and a few things come to mind:

I don’t think you need the quotation marks around it. I see this A LOT from the local car dealerships I work with, so I see where you’ve gotten it, but you’re not quoting anything and you don’ t need the marks to set it off from any other text since it’s freestanding.

The capitalization seems odd to me. If it were me, I’d probably use title case on that line. All the words are important and having only “quality” and “outstanding” capitalized seems to emphasize only part of your message.

The use of ellipsis here also bothers me. I think you’d be more correct and better off using an em-dash instead.

This line still looks too close to the edge. I usually leave minimum of a pica between any descenders and the biz card edge.

Finally, you might consider using a different font treatment on the slogan. As it is, it kind of disappears beneath the illustration and the card feels fairly top heavy. You might try reusing your wild west font here.

You’re doing a good job of taking criticism and putting it to work in your design. Business cards are deceptively tough because you’re dealing with minimal content in a small space, but this only makes your decisions on placement, alignment, typography, etc, that much more important.

[nclester02]

I've actaully tweaked a few things since the last copy i said was final, as we all know it's never final. The card was for my old man's used car dealership.. so he wanted it because I made it. First one, i thought it was ok. here was the actual card. finished outta my hands.

[img=http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/3152/westcoastautosbusinesscardfinisheddj1.th.jpg] (http://img103.imageshack.us/my.php?image=westcoastautosbusinesscardfinisheddj1 .jpg)

[amelia]

Looks really good. Great development throughout!