Audubon, PA, UPS Store Explains Business Card Design Principles

 The UPS Store and Print Shop is one of the leading providers of business card printing services in Audubon, PA. The team strives to help local entrepreneurs produce vivid business cards that communicate professionalism to potential leads and clients.

Business Card Design Principles

To ensure that a business card effectively conveys the information printed on it, it is helpful to know and abide by some basic design principles. The UPS Store and Print Shop in Audubon, PA, is sharing six tips to help small business owners design business cards that are both functional and pleasing to the eye.

1. Readable

Colors and shapes are important to business card design, but readable text is fundamental. After all, a business card’s main purpose is to communicate the company’s key contact information. According to Entrepreneur.com, “Decorative, whimsical and heavily styled fonts can be beautiful, but difficult to read. Simple fonts are best. Keep the font size large enough so that potential customers don’t have to squint or take out their glasses to read your contact information…. For easy reading, print text in a dark hue such as black, navy, or a dark shade of gray.”

2. Consistent

If entrepreneurs are already circulating printed materials for their business, they will want to make sure that the design of their new business cards is consistent with their existing print marketing. Business cards that look radically different from the business’s other print projects can confuse customers and do injury to the business’s overall brand identity.

3. Practical

Because the text is, in most cases, the centerpiece of a business card, the business card designer will want to ensure that the text is chosen with practical considerations in mind. A person who receives the business card should be able to quickly and easily find the relevant contact information. Entrepreneur.com offers the following recommendation, “At a minimum, you should include three pieces of information: your name, phone number, and e-mail address. If space permits, include your company name, address, and website. Fax numbers aren’t as relevant as they once were and can be omitted. It’s also not necessary to print the links to all your social networking sites.”

4. Professional

When designing a business card, the goal is to create a polished, appropriate design that accurately reflects the character and aesthetic of the brand. Balance is key. A bland, generic design will not differentiate a business from its competition. On the other hand, a garish and cluttered design can be distracting and off-putting.

If a business updates its contact information, it is essential to have updated business cards printed promptly. Writing in updated contact information or striking out outdated information on the card can be perceived as unprofessional.

5. Correct

A single spelling error or informational error can ruin the impact of even the most well-designed and easily read business card. Business News Daily cites a survey that reports that 65% of survey respondents indicated that typos were “unacceptable in their industry.” Errors can undermine potential customers’ confidence in a business owner’s attention to detail. Because first impressions are so powerful, people may pass up an excellent business opportunity simply because they noticed a spelling error in the business card.

6. Convenient

While unconventionally shaped business cards are experiencing a rise in popularity, not everyone appreciates cards that deviate from the standard size, which is 3.5 inches by 2 inches. A circular or die-cut business card might be attention-grabbing, but if the card does not fit in the average business card holder, the potential lead may simply throw the card away. Strive to design business cards so that they are convenient for the recipient to store.

The UPS Store and Print Shop offer hundreds of free business card templates that customers can customize online. In addition, business cards can be designed from scratch, or a pre-existing design can be uploaded.

For the client that would prefer to leave the design work to the professionals, The UPS Store and Print Shop offers personalized graphic design services. In a turnaround time that can be as short as six hours, the print experts translate the client’s vision into a final rendering.

For more information about business card printing in Audubon, PA, contact The UPS Store and Print Shop in Audubon, PA, by phone at (610) 650-8114. The team can also be reached by email at store2447@theupsstore.com.

Local UPS Store in Audubon, PA, Highlights UPS’s Efficient Delivery Process

 The UPS Store in Audubon, PA, is dedicated to providing the local community with the best shipping and packing services, especially during times of uncertainty. As schedules are upended by COVID-19 challenges, Audubon’s local UPS Store and UPS Stores across the country strive to be a haven for reliable services that customers and small business owners can trust.

USPS Delivery Delays in Pennsylvania and Across the Nation

When COVID-19 became a national concern in the early months of 2020, few suspected that the pandemic would continue to affect events as far off as Christmas. Yet, the virus persisted, and by the time Christmas arrived, Americans were still practicing social distancing, spending more time at home, and avoiding unnecessary public outings. As a result, many chose to purchase Christmas presents, holiday decor, and festive accessories from online retailers rather than take the risk of shopping at a brick-and-mortar location.

According to Criteo.com, four out of ten US shoppers planned to purchase more products online during the 2020 holiday season than they did during the 2019 holiday season. Digital Commerce 360 notes that “global digital orders continued to grow after Cyber Monday (Nov. 30), peaking to 71% growth year over year on Dec. 5 before slowing down on Dec. 7.”

Now, at the start of 2021, the effect of this unprecedented rise in online purchases has become apparent, especially as it relates to the ability of the United States Postal Service to deliver packages and mail on time. The USPS was swamped, not only by an excess of online orders but also by the need to process mail-in ballots for the 2020 election. This convergence of online holiday shopping and mail-in voting, coupled with cost-cutting endeavors and sick employees, has led to delivery delays that are still felt into 2021.

The USPS’s struggle to recover to a timely delivery schedule is no secret. The USPS website prominently displays an alert that reads, “USPS is experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19.” Consumers across the United States have experienced the frustration of waiting for that long-overdue Christmas present, or more troublingly, for the medication that did not arrive on schedule. ROIRevolution reports that “36% of consumers have experienced substantial shipping delays due to COVID-19.”

Like the rest of the country, Pennsylvania has experienced its fair share of delivery delays. A December 18 article from The Philadelphia Inquirer described a major back-up for the state’s USPS facilities. “Facilities across the region are so full of packages, there is barely enough room to walk, employees in Philadelphia, Lehigh Valley, and South Jersey said. In Allentown, about 10 trailers filled with mail are sitting in the parking lot, with no room to unload the items. In Philadelphia, there are packages dated from before Thanksgiving scattered across the facility, employees said. Last week, a miles-long caravan of dozens of delivery trucks filled with mail waited for hours outside the Southwest Philadelphia site because there was no room to unload the parcels.”

How UPS and The UPS Store Provide an Efficient Shipping and Delivery Process

In light of USPS shipping delays and the continued disruptive impact of coronavirus, UPS and local UPS Stores are committed to ensuring that customers can rely on the company for a streamlined and smooth shipping and delivery process.

To prepare for the holiday rush from October 2020 to January 2021, UPS announced in September of 2020 that it planned to hire over 100,000 employees in order to rise to the challenge of delivering holiday packages. Chief Human Resources Officer Charlene Thomas said, “We’re preparing for a record peak holiday season. The COVID-19 pandemic has made our services more important than ever. We plan to hire over 100,000 people for UPS’s seasonal jobs, and anticipate a large number will move into permanent roles after the holidays.”

In addition, The UPS Store secured the number three spot on Entrepreneur’s 2021 Franchise 500 Ranking. The UPS Store’s corporate leadership was preparing for COVID-19 in the early stages of the coronavirus crisis, and The UPS Store President Tim Davis emphasizes that they did “scenario planning and created consistent guidelines and messaging for all our stores, even when there was a lot of misinformation running around.” Entrepreneur credits this preparation with The UPS Store’s ability to meet the challenges of the pandemic, writing, “The effort helped franchisees adopt new safety protocols on the fly, and the company managed to add 130 new stores even while rolling out a redesign and adapting to a surge in pandemic-­related shipping.”

To learn more about shipping services in Audubon, PA, contact The UPS Store in Audubon, PA, by phone at (610) 650-8114 or by email at store2447@theupsstore.com.