business cards — Hey There Michelle Blog

When you’re a graphic designer, everyone you know will usually come to you for any “creative work” they need. Sometimes it’s dumb, other times it’s fun. This is one of those times where it was fun.

My boyfriend, Luis, during the initial quarantine period last year, experienced a lay off from his job. While home, he decided he wanted to invest in something that would eventually pay for itself: a tractor.

One day, he says to me, “guess what I just bought!” and shows me a picture of what I call a “big, orange bug”. He bought this beautiful, bright pumpkin orange kubota (the actual color is “Kubota Orange”—so innovative, so creative) tractor as well as some accessories for it. That entire week, he rode around in it, built a new shed for his pieces, cleared a section of his yard so we could start a garden, and started telling his friends and family to spread the word. It was decided using this tractor would be a side hustle for him, which was good for some sort of income while unemployed, even if patchy.

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With this decision, he wanted to make it a little more professional. Together, we worked on a logo, and put that logo on business cards, signs, and magnets he put on his truck.

His vision was to incorporate both his new toy and the color. He also made it clear that he did not want the tractor to be orange, because he was afraid it wouldn’t stand out enough.

We went through a few (read: several) ideas at first. None of them really spoke to him or how he felt his new venture should be portrayed to a tee, but he did have some partial feelings to a couple. He also insisted the word “backhoe” be used so people had a specific idea of what services he actually offered and that he was not just a handyman.

Although I no longer have these printouts we pinned up to show, I still have the digital version. He circled a couple from this initial round and we took it from there. What we came up with was kind of simple, but was exactly what Luis was looking for.

We kept the tractor black like the “LAR”, but added an orange ring behind it. The orange signified the color of the tractor, the roundness of a circle reflected upon Luis’ well-rounded nature in both his personality and work (despite specifically using the word “backhoe” to identify what he did) and drew attention to the tractor. The words “Backhoe Services” are in a beautiful charcoal gray to avoid too much black logo, and to let the “LAR” (Luis’ initials) and the tractor stand out, thus becoming the key identifiers in the logo.

Copy styles and choices in black and white.

Color version of the logo: vertical, horizontal, icon, and logotype.

Luis’ first time using the tractor to try and dig up the surface of the yard before tilling for us to start our garden.

Once Luis signed off on the logo, we went to work making other things for him to get started with: business cards (home-printed to see how it goes), a sign for his garage, and a set of magnets for his truck.

With the signs and the business card, Luis wanted to take it a step further and add on key words that let people know what he can do with his tractor: auger, backhoe, brush hog, and loader—attachments he has for the tractor to get different things done. Over the winter with each snowfall, he was able to go plow for different local businesses, as people began to refer him via WOM (word of mouth).

As things begin to pick up for him, and he feels like he can really make a living with it, he will start to look into making it into an LLC, get real business cards printed, and maybe even find an office space. But for now, we’re just working simply and enjoying his new toy.

I had asked Luis to let me take photos of him holding his business cards for months at this point; by time he was able to let me do it, he already handed out all the good copies of his cards and only had the mistakes left, hence the banding on the o… — I had asked Luis to let me take photos of him holding his business cards for months at this point; by time he was able to let me do it, he already handed out all the good copies of his cards and only had the mistakes left, hence the banding on the one card.

The sign hangs above the garage doors that house the bug.

One of the magnets seated on the door of Luis’ truck.

For anyone in the South Jersey area (for now) looking for work to be done by Luis and his orange tractor, feel free to call the number on the sign, or email the address shown on his card.

While texting a fellow classmate/friend about tomorrow’s career fair, I asked her if she needed me to print anything out for her: portfolio, resume, etc. She said she has all of that, so she’s good. I reminded her, “Don’t forget your business cards!” This was assuming she had at least gotten ones from the school of business when they were offered to us last semester. “I don’t have any!”

Feeling like business cards are important, I asked her, “Do you want me to whip up some quick ones for tomorrow?” She gratefully accepted and I decided that for today, this would be my design quickie. I had to raid my stash of papers and stocks to see if I had any white cardstock. Unfortunately, I only had light gray, and because I have a 6-cartridge photo printer that does not employ white ink, gray was not an option. However, I did have a pad of bristol vellum. Although it’s textured and not ideal for inkjet printing, it was the best I could do with short notice. I pulled out that pad, a cutting mat, my light tablet, my last pack of Letratac and a box of laminating sheets.

The front selections for Jojo’s business cards.

I went to work on these cards, keeping in mind what I did for her writing portfolio—she used gray, black and red. Although red can be beautiful, I felt like it would have been too strong of an accent color here, so I just went on with grays and black. When i finished a selection of three fronts and three backs, I emailed her a screenshot of her selections and let her pick. She liked “1 and 2”, so that’s what we went with.

I had her confirm her information was correct and went to work printing. The ink did just as I thought it would: it bled a little bit and the texture of the paper made the ink look spotty. It didn’t look terrible, but it didn’t look as good as it would have on a smooth, coated paper. An option I had would have been to print the faces on presentation paper, then adhere it to the bristol, laminate, then cut. However, I felt like for a quick, last-minute project, that would have been a bit extra.

Of course, my printer decided that it would not listen to my computer’s settings and print these sheets double sided, thus rendering more work for me in assembly. No worries. I printed the first set on two separate sheets, forgetting that I could just flip the sheet, re-feed it and it would be A-OK.

I took paper tape—you know, the kind you buy at Walgreens in the bandage section—and after using my overhead snake-neck lamp to put the sheets together and line them up, taped the sheets together on one end like a hinge and attempted to apply the Letratac to the back of one sheet.

I learned the hard way that my Letratac is so old, it doesn’t work as well as it would have ten years ago, brand new. Luckily, I had Tombow adhesive dots in that little pink handheld doodad and, with the help of my light tablet, applied adhesive on the backs of the cards, around the perimeters and then in the middles for reinforcement. I closed the papers onto each other, and decided it would be safer for me to hand cut these rather than use the guillotine for fear of squishing the ends.

I hand-applied the laminate to both sides of these now two-ply cards and began to cut them out by hand.

48 plus cuts later, the first dozen was done. For the second set, I decided to flip the paper this time for printing, which allowed me to have single-ply cards, and to cut down production time on them. Print, laminate, cut, done.

I’m pretty happy with how they came out for a quick 10-minute design and hour long assembly process. They’re not professional and if I had my way, I would have had a better stock of paper to choose from, as well as a printer with a heater so the bleeding would be minimal, but alas here we are. I worked with what I had, and after a few photos were sent, my classmate/friend is a happy camper and now she has 24 business cards to pass out at the fair tomorrow.