Photo by Pablo Abuliak
Maria Bernal, award winning photographer from Austin, TX, wanted a brand new brand and a new look, and she wanted her new business cards to be SEXY. She wanted them to speak subtly about lingerie, mystery, outrageous and over-the-top glamor and just stop people in their tracks when she handed them one. What is a sexy business card? I confess, I didn’t know either. But the answer came to me in the middle of the night with a vision of this MB monogram. Black, super thick Museum Mount with three foils: black gloss foil, pewter-silvery foil and hot pink fuchsia foil. The bodacious flash of hot pink edge painting sent her new business cards on a trajectory to Venus. Nobody can believe them.
Photo by Zida
Maria tells me all the time that potential clients won’t put her cards in their purses or pockets: they carry them around or they put them on their mantles! If any card will get you remembered, a card with this kind of boldness and yumminess will.
Photo by Zida
Here are Maria’s own words about her quest for a new brand and a new business card:
I.AM.SO.EXCITED. Why? Well, I did something for myself and my company and I think it is super awesome! What have I done? I have been struggling with my company logo and I have been struggling with my website and all the other business stuff that goes with it all. I wanted a FULL IMAGE, I wanted NEW MARKETING materials, I wanted THE WORLD!!! Ha Ha.
Anywho…Marketing and image are a HUGE PART of a photographer’s business and I felt that I needed a huge change. How does one go about figuring out what their company image is and what it should be? What kinds of things do you change when you go about a new marketing strategy? Well, first, you need a SMOKIN’ logo-that is the foundation of your image. You need a great website, something that you love and that your clients will love (hopefully). New stationary, New gift cards, New envelopes, New EVERYTHING! That is a lot to change. How do you get started? I can tell you that I struggled because as artistic as I am, I was in my box! I could not get out of it to design my new company image. I wanted something new, bold, sexy…I could not design it
Then came a light at the end of the tunnel. I called one of the top designers in the country: Zida Borcich of Studio Z! HOLY CRAP. That woman is a GENIUS! No, not just a “genius” but a GENIUS!!! I called her up and I showed her my website and I said “Zida, I need something sleek, sexy, and uptown”. For you car folks..I wanted a bugatti, I wanted a Maybach… mmm. She said, “ok, I understand”. I said “Zida, I am not easy and I may take a long time to agree”. She said “I am pretty sure I understand what you are looking for”. FOLKS-She nailed it in two days!! You ask yourself… “why do I need to hire a graphic designer to design my new marketing materials? I am an artist, I can do it.” Well, there is NO WAY I could have come up with what she did because even as artists, we can be in our box when it comes to marketing materials. Zida has designed new primary logo, complimentary logos for letterheads and other stuff… Zida has truly given me a new brand and I love her for that! My new business cards that she is designing for me with the letterpress + painted edge is “to die for.” Zida is not able to put all my stuff on her website yet because I want to reveal it first but, I know it will be because she did an amazing job.
Photo by Zida
Even the backs are cooler than cool
In the process of designing and printing up these showstopper business cards, Maria and I became friends. I mean, like hi baby what are you doing kind of friends. It was therefore ultra fun finally to meet her in person and to be able to hang out with her and all her fabulous friends from Texas at WPPI, like Richard Sturdevant, The Edmonsons, Lou George and Eydie from BWC, Jason Huang, Andrew Chan, and all of those fabulous guys. Wonderful to really get to know each other a little more than just about letterpress printing. Maria’s talents seem to be endless. I am so glad I got the chance to work with her on this totally fun project. She loved the design so much that she had a new web site built and just changed up EVERYTHING. Very exciting, very very…
thats sexy, am looking to make business cards for myself. also.. so i was hovering around seeing what people make for themselves.. thats very beautifull… i tell ya..
i just am printing mine rite now.. i drew my own first name sign on the front with an email and ph on the right hand corner grey with the name black foil stamp.. think it should look elegant.
Amazing Card again…
Really you writing very well. Thanks for good informations.
Luv U too, Maria. Everyone thinks your biz cards are The Bomb, including Jenn at JennAffairs! xoxoxo
yup, those are definitely my words. i love you and your work. i tell everyone about it.