Business Card - Critique

In the process of designing some business cards. Below is what I have come up with so far. What is good and bad??? Also the website is not yet set up.

Domain name is too long, forcing you into small, hard-to-read fonts, and ridiculously long email addresses, web links, social media links, etc...

The domain capturedbysteve.com is not only shorter, easier to remember, looks better, sounds better, but it's also available right now for $12.99 on godaddy.com

As far as the card goes, it works...can't say im a huge fan of the light blue on the white as far as legibility goes. The word "freelance" isn't necessary.

Just offering my personal thoughts with the best of intentions.

For me, it looks immediately too busy. My eyes really don't know where to go. This is, in part, due to the card looking somewhat crowded with elements but, also, due to the light and dark blues that really, for me, don't work well together at all.

Yes, you want visual impact, but this is a confused impact.

If you are going to have the light blue in the logo, which I'm not a fan of but that's just personal taste, then drop the Facebook blue and just have the FB link, and website link, in black. That will help a bit because, otherwise, for me, its just a clash.

Concerning the back of the card, not sure that swapping lover the text and bullet point colors in the two columns works. Again, it feels a little overdone.

I think it needs a little toning down, in truth. But, as said, just my personal opinion.

The white background/light blue is hard to read, in fact I can't.

thedcmule2 wrote in post #16344389
Domain name is too long, forcing you into small, hard-to-read fonts, and ridiculously long email addresses, web links, social media links, etc...

The domain capturedbysteve.com is not only shorter, easier to remember, looks better, sounds better, but it's also available right now for $12.99 on godaddy.com

As far as the card goes, it works...can't say im a huge fan of the light blue on the white as far as legibility goes. The word "freelance" isn't necessary.

Thank you. I now have both of the domains. Found a promo code and it only cost me $2.19 for capturedbysteve.com

Andrew Tingle wrote in post #16344395
Just offering my personal thoughts with the best of intentions.

For me, it looks immediately too busy. My eyes really don't know where to go. This is, in part, due to the card looking somewhat crowded with elements but, also, due to the light and dark blues that really, for me, don't work well together at all.

Yes, you want visual impact, but this is a confused impact.

If you are going to have the light blue in the logo, which I'm not a fan of but that's just personal taste, then drop the Facebook blue and just have the FB link, and website link, in black. That will help a bit because, otherwise, for me, its just a clash.

Concerning the back of the card, not sure that swapping lover the text and bullet point colors in the two columns works. Again, it feels a little overdone.

I think it needs a little toning down, in truth. But, as said, just my personal opinion.

All of the blues are the same blue except for the facebook portion. I will try to make it less busy as well. Also the card is very readable when printed. For some reason the resolution when uploaded wasn't too good.

Try something a lot simpler, less is more (this is far from perfect, just a quick throw-together):

In the eye of the...personally it is love hate for me, love the simple "captured" card, unique and full of interest to look more, the other is busy central and makes me want to ignore it all. Just my spin.

scubasteve382 wrote in post #16344375
In the process of designing some business cards. Below is what I have come up with so far. What is good and bad??? Also the website is not yet set up.

EMBED PREVENTED, HEAVYWEIGHT DOWNLOAD: 2.68 MB
http://farm6.staticfli​ckr.com …77178774_2216f4​fbae_o.jpg

business card - front web use 72 by capturedbystevephotogr​aphy, on Flickr

EMBED PREVENTED, HEAVYWEIGHT DOWNLOAD: 2.69 MB
http://farm3.staticfli​ckr.com …77178974_b869fa​7613_o.jpg

business card - back web use 72 by capturedbystevephotogr​aphy, on Flickr

Much too busy. Too hard to draw the viewers eyes to the important information.
Remove all the "children's, weddings, events" etc kinda stuff. Just say photographer. By default, if you don't specify, you do it all.

Oh and can I also mention that "captured by steve" is a ridiculously bad business name especially out of context?
Screams kidnapper or something.

Thats hilariously true. His slogan should be "gotcha b***h!"....

Oh the other hand, it might work for him...

I think you need this thread, it's dormant for a few weeks but is very long with good reading inside and is all card critiques: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=118646

A couple rules of thumb.

Two fonts, max. Any more and it looks like a font sampler.
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Whitespace, whitespace, whitespace.
Don't say what can be left unsaid.
Ten specialties = Generalist.
Contact information needs to be readable by Grandma.

Now, a couple direct points.

No need for the Facebook logo. In fact, lose the Facebook link. Main URL only, and have a link there.

If you're dead set on using both sides (personally, I like a one-sided card, gives me someplace to write things when I give it to them--aka personalize), put the [CAPTURED] on one side, large. That's it, no "by Steve" just [CAPTURED]. On the reverse, put your name, URL, phone number. Simple.

My $2.

John

The list of things you do is too long. You could replace it all by something along the lines of "portraits & celebrations". I'm not a fan of the cyan color you picked, The more blue-ish cyan that thedcmule used looks better to me.

NeonStar wrote in post #16344824
Oh and can I also mention that "captured by steve" is a ridiculously bad business name especially out of context?
Screams kidnapper or something.

Haha, you make it sound like he captures Families, Children, Newborns and pets.

In all seriousness, consider a name change if you haven't invested too much money in it yet.

I kind of came to the conclusion on my own to make a simple clean looking card but let me ask you all what you think:

http://i.imgur.com/SMG​K0AB.png

The first one I was working on:

http://i.imgur.com/Jcv​5LXC.jpg

I spent all kinds of time setting up a green screen to take a picture of my light and did photoshop on it etc. and I was going to list all the types of photography I do but it just seemed so busy and unclean. I figure if you say you are a photographer they're going to realize you can do it all. We're not doctors, we don't need to specialize. If we do specialize it's because we "get" to out of demand (such as a wedding photographer with a great rep).