Widely used by professionals in financial and legal industries, the Corporate Power Card primarily projects an image of authority and power. Usually created with no-nonsense designs, the Corporate Power Card is serious and upscale. The design for this type of style is always focused on the information on the card. What differentiates one corporate card from another are the slight details such as fonts, paper choice, and the depth of the black ink.
Creating this look is quite simple. Clients tend to prefer using Heavy Linen as their paper of choice. Heavy Linen has the brightest white of all our papers with a subtle woven texture. The combined brightness, thickness and woven texture creates an upscale and confident backdrop for your business card design. If you wish to learn more about our Heavy Linen, please read Linen: The Most Professional Paper
Heavy Nouveau and Sumo Nouveau are other popular paper choices among clients looking to achieve the Corporate Power Card. Heavy and Sumo Nouveau are the same types of matte, creamy white paper, with the only difference being their thickness. Sumo Nouveau is the thickest card we offer. It it so thick, it is impossible to bend. To learn more about Sumo Nouveau, please read What You Need to Know: Sumo Nouveau. Those who are interested in using Sumo Nouveau for their Corporate Power Card, will be interested in making part of the design focal point the thickness of the paper. Heavy Nouveau is half the thickness of Sumo Nouveau, but has the same natural elegance. Clients interested in Heavy Nouveau would want a natural elegance but not necessarily worried about thickness. For extra reading on Heavy Nouveau please read Nouveau and Heavy Nouveau: The Blank Slate.
The fonts we see on the Corporate Power Card tend to focus on Arial, Times New Roman and Verdana. The font is generally in all black coloring. While some keep their designs minimal with only ink printing on their font, others include a couple of design elements like the strategic use of a single straight line to divide information, and Blind Press Embossing.
Blind Press Embossing is that the indicated portion of a design is pressed into the paper on one end, creating a raised effect on one side of the paper and an indentation on the other. The ‘Blind’ portion of Blind Press Embossing means that the embossed design has no ink to it. Therefore the final embossing result is in the natural coloring of the paper. In the case of the Corporate Power Card, logos are generally embossed. The final design result create a serious yet noticeable effect.
Some trends we are seeing with the Corporate Power Card include going outside of the traditional limits of this design requirement without losing focus of the main design goal of this style. To remind, the main goal of this card is to have an authoritative and powerful no-nonsense design which will stand out from other cards. All focus design focus should be on the information of the card. Heavy Silky Matte is a paper which more and more clients are working with for this style. It has the same matte and thickness as the Heavy Linen and Heavy Nouveau, however it also has a silky feel to it. This silkiness is not slippery, allowing the fingers to glide across the surface of the paper. To make a design stand out more, we might suggest to consider using the following fonts: Book Antiqua, Century Schoolbook, TrebuchetMS, American TypewriterMBT, Bank Gothic, Rockwell. They are still professional, but a little more stylish than the traditionally used fonts.
Here at MorningPrint, we are starting to see some Corporate Power Cards that are going slightly beyond the realms of an all black coloring to their design. We are starting to see authoritative designs with a primary coloring of black on important contact information, like the name, with elements of Gray and Blue on the less important information, like the company slogan. Some clients are even avoiding black all together, opting instead for a a deep navy blue. The final printing result is much less harsh and stark than an all black design. Surprisingly we have seen some designs incorporating one bold color to their Corporate Power Card, like orange. We noticed that this design twist is more successful when the single bold color is taken from the company logo. It makes the card stand out without using an special effects.
Some other design elements we are starting to see is the use of a finishing option other than Blind Press Embossing. Some stay within the embossing realm, but use Ink Press Embossing, which means that the embossed area will also be printed in ink. It creates a slightly more bold effect than the Blind Press Embossing.
Others are using foiling, specifically Black, and Matte Silver. Black Foiling could also be used in place of ink, because it will make your design readable, but with a subtle shine. Some designs are even incorporating the blend of embossing and foiling. We are also starting to see Raised Ink for the logos or on the contact information. While it is the least used finishing option, it is starting to gain popularity. We have one Corporate Power Card which used Raised Ink and Foiling for their logo, because it was not overlapping.
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