Taking Mentorship Advice: my revamped business cards

One of the pieces of advice I received at my mentorship sessions last year was that I needed to revamp my business cards. As in I really REALLY needed to revamp my business cards.

Here are my old cards:

I used MOO to do these cards, which I admit to putting together at the last minute. For the front of each card, I had one of my Inkygirl.com comics for writers. On the back, I had the image you see in the bottom right, with my name, contact info, websites, etc.

While writers tended to like the cards because of the cartoons, they (the cards, not the writers) are graphically WAY too busy.

In fact, Cecilia Yung (Art Director of Penguin) said that when she looked at my card near the end of the judging process, she had to go back to look at my portfolio to remind herself about WHY she had picked me for the Mentorship Program.

Eek.

Anyway, my graphic designer friend Ray Vankleef from One Trick Pony helped me revamp my card design (thanks, Ray!). And I admit that I did find it a challenge to include so much WHITE SPACE. The writer part of my brain kept screaming, "What a waste! You could be including more information!" But I resisted.

Here's the revamped card:

Thank you, Ray!

When I went to meet with Cecilia at Penguin last month, she told me she was so proud of me. :-D

What about the rest of you? Did you design your own cards or get help? Feel free to post samples of your own cards.