8 brilliant design agency business cards

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If there’s one type of company that needs to get its business card designs right, it’s a design agency. Its whole reason for existence is to create great designs, so if it can’t do that with its own business cards, it’s bound to raise eyebrows.

The agencies featured on this list have created top-class designs for their business cards, ranging from the elegant to the quirky (though not as quirky as these innovative business card designs). Most were designed in-house, though the last two called in the expertise of outsiders. We hope you like them too, and that they help to inspire your own business card projects.

01. Ink Digital

Ink Digital prints the same business card for each staff member, then gives them individual stickers to complete the design

Ink Digital, an award-winning digital agency based in Yorkshire, England and Melbourne, Australia, has come up with an innovative way to reduce costs, waste and print runs. It printed the same charmingly upbeat business card for all members of staff, and then printed separate stickers for each individual, which included their headshot and contact details, to be fixed onto their own cards.

02. Made Brave

MadeBrave’s foil-printed business cards are a feast for the eyes

MadeBrave is an agency in Glasgow, Scotland, that focuses on branding, design, digital and social. It describes these black and white business cards with painted edges as “like beautiful black and teal sandwiches”, and who are we to disagree? They were designed in-house and printed with matte white foil on both sides.

03. Mediendesignwerk

Mediendesignwerk’s business cards fuse luxurious materials with sophisticated printing techniques

Mediendesignwerk is a creative design agency based in Bavaria, Germany. What it describes as its ‘look-alike-letterpress business cards’ were printed by Druckkultur Späthling on extra-thick 600gsm Gmund Cotton paper. Two-colour offset printing was employed, with blind embossing for the background ‘M’ pattern.

04. L'Atelier Irradie

This French agency’s business cards make inventive use of colour gradients

L'Atelier Irradié is a multidisciplinary creative studio founded in Paris in 2016 by brothers Alain and Laurent Vonck. 'Irradié' basically translates as 'irradiated', or to radiate light, making the metallic, jewel-toned gradients of these business cards tie in with the concept beautifully. On the other side, there’s no ink at all: the contact details are simply imprinted on the white card.

05. Aurora

Aurora’s stunning cards showcase the kind of client work it's known for

Aurora is a creative studio founded by Lize-Marie Dreyer in 2015 and based in Cape Town, South Africa. These beautifully illustrated business cards represent the kind of work it does perfectly. They were designed in-house and feature gold embossed detailing.

06. CP+B

CP+B reflects its love of the analogue with this business card, which doubles as a stencil

Founded in Miami, Florida, in 1988 by the late Sam Crispin, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) is a large agency with offices around the globe. Its designers are strong believers in the notion that all ideas should start on paper, without the influence of computer software. 

So associate design director Scott Pridgen came up with the idea of creating a business card that acts as a stencil. The card is made of thin plastic and features a selection of laser-cut icons including Hermy, the firm’s elephant mascot.

07. Nymbl

Nymbl’s two-colour cards make an instant impact

Nymbl is a moving image production studio based in Bristol, England, that specialises in 3D animation and virtual reality (formerly called FA Digital Productions). 

Feeling its branding was letting it down – and lacking the in-house print design expertise of the previous agencies in our list – it turned to a local agency, Big Fan, to come up with a new name, website and branding. As part of that effort came these cool cards, with an eye-catching two-colour palette, and two punched-out dots; one representing work, the other play.

08. Curious Space

Curious Space’s business card design conveys the concept behind the agency perfectly

Curious Space is a Brighton, England-based design studio that specialises in the creation of immersive spaces for for museums, galleries and the stage. This inventive business card was created by London design director Mark Bloom, aka Mash Creative, as part of an identity design in collaboration with Andy Cooke.

 It was printed in fluorescent and grey ink with a blind debossed grid pattern to the logo on the reverse side. You can see more images of the business cards at printer Freestyle Print's website.

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