10 easy steps to create a killer business card

1. Keep it simple stupid.

2. Design with your potential client in mind.

3. This is your businesses impression after you are no longer with the person so make it count.

4. Stop using www before your domain name. It's no longer 1996 so www is a given.

5. Use color but not too much.

6. Tiny text isn't helpful so don't scrunch a lot of text on your card.

7. Ask yourself "if someone picked this up off the street would they know what I do, and how to contact me?” The answer should be yes.

8. Keep your brand evident. Logos are important so give them the room they deserve.

9. Simplify your logo. If your logo is overly excessive then go ahead and simplify it.

10. Don't skimp on the printing. This is a big deal. High quality paper and ink make a huge difference.

So there you have it. 10 east steps to follow when designing business cards.

Are you a business card designer? We’d love to know what you would add to our list.

How much does a website cost & 10 reasons you must have one

Well, the first reason is that it's 2017! I mean, really do you even need us to answer this question? For those of you who are still not sold on getting/having a website here is our list of 10 reasons why you absolutely must have one. 

1. It is 2017 and it is expected of any professional business. 
2. A website is live 27/7/365. That means that when your business is closed for the day, weekend, or holiday your website remains open and visible to people looking for the service you provide. 
3. Your biggest competitor has one. Therefore by you not having one puts them at a higher opportunity to gain your potential clients or customers. 
4. Consumers appreciate the animosity that websites give them. Many potential clients/customers want to check your business out without feeling like they are committing. Websites give them this animosity. 
5. There are over 200 million people online who live in the US. Worldwide we are talking about a billion people. By having a site, anyone can find your business vs. the people who only drive by your storefront or the word of mouth. 
6. You can use your website to advertise or provide general information to people looking for something specific. 
7. Having a website gives you the ability to gather feedback from a broader base of people. 
8. Gives you the ability to sell directly instead of through another vendor or company. 
9. Gives you the cost-effective way to get your message across. Stop wasting your time with sending your message to the wrong people. Use the web for your business and generate better leads and better conversions. 
10. Lastly, having a website gives your company creditability. 

Now that you understand why you must have a website let us tell you how much a website is going to cost. 

There are tons of options available for a website but we are going to break it down to convenience and cost. You should be aware that if you sell products, you will need an e-commerce site which generally comes with a higher price tag. 

Simple DIY + Blog
You can get an inexpensive website anywhere between $0-$200 if you are willing to do everything yourself. PROS: Cheap | CONS: You will need to be tech savvy and comfortable setting up domains and hosting. 

Custom + Blog
The easiest option is to pay to have someone do everything for you however, it is not the cheapest. Custom website costs anywhere between $5,000-$12,000 depending how many pages you want and customizations. PROS: it gets done right. CONS: Price

Custom + Blog + E-Commerce
As we stated above, adding in commerce to a website can get costly. However, you can still do either of the options above. Generally, an e-commerce site will cost you $15,000 plus. 

Not sure which site you need? Contact us for a free consultation where we will help you outline what you need and then you can go where you want to get it created. 

5 steps to create a killer HTML email PLUS free email banner templates

There are so many tools, posts, and opinions out there about designing emails but we are here to share our best-kept secrets when it comes to how we design our most effective emails.

Ultimately we hope you find this post extremely helpful and insightful but if you only came for the FREE email banner templates, you can click here now.

Alright here we go.

Secret Number 1 - Stop designing emails on your desktop

That’s right take your browser window and scrunch it all the way to a phone or tablet size and start there. Why? Because in 2016 more than 50% of emails were opened on a mobile device. Compare that to only 15% of emails are opened on a desktop. By starting your design with mobile in mind you are catering to the majority of your audience, giving them the optimal email experience.

Secret Number 2 - Make the subject line interesting

Ask yourself when writing a subject line “Self, would I click on this email because of the subject line?” If the answer is anything but an overzealous YES you are going need to work harder on crafting it. Think about it, this is the first impression your email is going to give someone so it better be the best subject line you’ve ever come up with. Plus, all that time you spent on the amazing content in the actual email, doesn’t matter if people don’t open your email because the subject is below par.

Secret Number 3 - A picture says a thousand words

Yeah, so I know you love to write and fill up pages upon pages of probably wonderful content but sorry, your readers don’t want all of that in an email.  You’ve got less than 20 seconds to convey everything to your reader don’t waste it on all of your words. That’s what your blog and website are for. Direct people to your website for the meat of the content - or artichokes for the veggies out there! Instead, craft a creative image that pulls out the MOST important thing or the one thing you want your reader to remember, act on, or click through to learn more as they marathon their way through their inbox.

Email Layout Ideas. Gray signifies an Image. 

Secret Number 4 -  Don’t be afraid of negative space

You know, the space between things that for some reason you feel like you need to fill in with words, images, or heaven forbid SCREAMING TEXT. Just stop. Embrace the negative space. Because it is there for a reason. Our eyes weren’t meant to read without taking a break every so often just think how many times you’ve blinked since you started to read this article. So, if you remove the negative space or the space that naturally gives readers eyes a break then you will lose your audience because their eyeballs will be on fire (that one is for you, KristenR) from nonstop reading. Bottom line, leave the negative space and while you’re at it revisit secret number 3 cause I know you still have way too much content in your email.

Secret Number 5 - Should this be an email

Now I know what you are thinking. "What do you mean should this be an email?! You said these were secrets to creating a killer email." Yes, those are correct statements. However, this is probably one of the best pieces of advice we can give you. Should the email you are writing be an email? What’s the point? What’s the purpose? Can you convey your message in any other format? If the answer to that last question is yes, then you probably shouldn’t send an email. Other ideas of what to do instead are: write a blog post, craft a social media post or the very old technology of picking up a telephone and actually communicating in real-time with another human being.

Keep in mind that your email is one out of nearly 100 others that readers get per day so don’t waste time on a half thought through email. Take the time, follow the steps and deliver killer emails every time you hit send.   

Hopefully, these secrets have brought some light to the dark scary corner of email creation for you. If you have questions or have a need we can fill, please reach out. Email us at info@pinchdesign.co - we are here to help.

Study Guide - Layout Design

First project complete. Here is a post about my process and experience. 

Women of Grace from Grace Church needed a engaging piece for their fall study. They provided the content, I just had to provide them a study guide that 1. was engaging for people to read.. The content arrived in a MS Word doc (ew, yes I know) but it was very organized and easy to follow (great job WOG team for that!). I took time to look through the doc and realized that it was over a 100 pages. My first thought was holy crap! But once I started putting things in my Indesign document it was pretty easy and straightforward. 

I took a slightly different approach this time as I added in the content. Since this guide is broken up into lessons, I created a template for each lesson and then was able to plug in the information without trying to think though if it would be two columns or three or if it would have an image or not. This really helped me speed up the process of getting the content into the Indesign doc. 

I'd say the hardest part of this project was making sure everything was formatted the same. It's easy to tweak little things without even knowing it when a project spans a few days. Luckily, Indesign makes this easy with Character Styles. If you don't use them for large layout projects you are most certainly wasting time. 

My favorite part of this project was finding the imagery. I used Kaboompics.com for most of the imagery. The images and color for each lesson really provided the continuity within the lesson but also gave continuity to the whole project. 

The Women of Grace team was thrilled with the finished product which in the end is all that matters to me. 

Project Stats

18

hours spent

2

font faces used

111

pages designed

“OH MY! Are you kidding me?? This is absolutely gorgeous! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!”

— Julie & Corinne, Women of Grace