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Photo Business Cards
Professional Photographers And Head Shots.
How To Get The Best Photo Taken For Your Business Cards
When it comes to photo business cards, many of the same
principles apply to professional photography and taking your own photos.
See previous article, "Taking Your
Own Photos. How To Take Great Shots For Your Photo Business Cards. (Smile)"
The main point that one should understand about photographers
is that they are artists. Professional photographers are, therefore, professional
artists. One main thing professional photographers and graphic commercial
artists share in common is that the job entails the expression of concepts
in imagery. We take ideas and concepts such as 'strong, dependable, professional
and trustworthy' or 'fun, exciting and sexy' and translate them into images.
Photo business card design is one of the ultimate meeting places of these
two disciplines. The graphic artist and photographer are working on the
same job and attempting to express the same concepts. If you want your
photo business cards to represent your company effectively, think about
what impression you want to give people about your business. If you're
a stockbroker, you may want to give the impression of being 'fast-paced,
timely, dependable, knowledgeable and profitable'.
If you're an interior decorator, you may want to let people know that
you're 'fashionable, tasteful, refined and elegant'. If you've given some
thought to this, you can help the graphic designer and photographer immensely
by telling them what you want your photo business cards to convey. They
can then create the most effective photo business cards for your unique
business.
The next best thing you can do to help the graphic designer and photographer
create the best photo business cards for you is to let them do their job.
I can't tell you how many amateur looking business cards I've had to print
because the customer knew exactly what they wanted. By telling
me exactly where to place their photo, how big to display it, what color
text they wanted, the fonts to use on each line and exactly where to place
each line of text in relation to the photo, the customer, in effect, designed
their own business cards using my technical know-how of the graphics program.
The only problem with this is that those customers are not professional
commercial artists. Had they told me what they wanted their photo business
cards to convey, they would have wound up with a much nicer looking and
effective design. The same holds true for photographers: tell them what
you want the photo to accomplish and let them do their thing.
The main advantage to using professional photography for your photo business
cards is, of course, the quality of the images. You don't have to worry
about lighting, color quality or sharpness.
But another huge advantage of using a professional photographer is that
they should be able to provide you with a CD of your images in electronic
formats ready for printing. This can be very important for your marketing
campaign. If you have a selection of images on CD, all ready for printing,
then anytime you need any marketing materials designed and printed, all
you have to do is choose which photo you like for the project and email
it straight to the printing company's designer.
Many of my photo business card customers have sent me two or three photos
to choose from. They tell me that these are their favorite photos and
to select the one that works best for their photo business card layout.
This is the ideal situation as it allows the designer to use their skills
and talents to create the best design possible.
So, in a nutshell, if you're going to hire a professional photographer
for your marketing images, there are three main points to remember:
- Tell the photographer what you're trying to convey with
the photos and the purpose of the photos.
- Let the photographer use their creativity, talent and
skill to get the best photos for you.
- Hire a photographer than can provide you with a CD of
all of the images, so you have them in an easy to use format, ready
for printing.
For more information on getting and choosing the best photos
for photo business cards, see
Using Your Own Photos On Business Cards
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