Business Cards & Stationery
A business card is probably the most underrated brand tool. It gets two seconds of attention and is either pocketed or added to the pile that eventually gets binned. What lies between a card from an online discounter and one with letterpress on 600 g Colorplan is more than a price difference: it is a promise about the care of the person behind it. We design business cards and stationery sets across Germany for solo practitioners, small teams and brands who do not want to leave the first impression to chance.
What makes a good card
Material first. Natural papers like GF Smith Colorplan, Gmund Cotton or Bio Cycle give the card a tactility that cannot be reproduced on screen. 350 g/m² is the floor for a professional card, 600 g/m² as a duplex build of two glued layers is the sweet spot when the card should mean something. Finishes are used deliberately: letterpress as depth for the logo, hot foil in gold or spot colour as accent, edge colour as a visual promise when the card is pulled from a pile.
Typographically we work in restraint. A hierarchy of three sizes, one type family from the brand guidelines, clear safe areas to the edges. Anyone writing everything on it gives the card nothing to take away. We trim phone number, web address and title to what is actually needed, and leave room for the message.
How card and brand system connect
The business card is the most compact application of a corporate design. It usually opens a business stationery set and should form one system with letterhead, envelope and invoice sheet. If a logo design is being developed in parallel, we time the card so print data and logo finalisation move together. A standalone card sits between €800 and €2,200, bundled with a full stationery set the card share comes down. We name that honestly before the proposal.
Cards that trigger something in the hand
Weight, edge, surface. A business card on 600 g GF Smith Colorplan feels different from a standard 350 g from an online discounter. That is the point.
Letterpress, hot foil, edge colour
Finishes are set with an idea behind them. No glitter for the sake of glitter, but edge colour as an accent or letterpress as depth for the logo.
Print data that goes through
Bleed, safe areas, type as paths, ICC profile. We deliver data that does not start a discussion at the printer, but goes straight to press.
Scalable within a team
When one person becomes a team, we build the cards as a template that can be updated per person in ten minutes, without each new card becoming a design project.
Industries this service fits
Selected work
Velvet Soul Street – Corporate Design
Streetwear energy in a stitched wordmark: identity, packaging and stationery for a label.
Leni's Café – Branding
A café brand like a handwritten note: watercolour menu, packaging and type for a small café.
Weingut Werner – Wine Labels
From vineyard to shelf — labels that translate the character and origin of a small winery into a visual language of its own.
Frequently asked
A pure business card design with print data and a printer recommendation typically lands between €800 and €2,200. Letterpress, edge colour or hot foil printing is quoted on top. Bundled with full [business stationery](/en/leistungen/praesentation/geschaeftsausstattung) the card is significantly cheaper as part of the whole.
Letterpress is the queen of card finishes when the logo has a calm shape. Hot foil in gold or a spot colour works strongly in small doses, but only once per card. Edge colour is cheap in effect and expensive in impression. We recommend what fits the brand, not what is trending.
For letterpress, minimum runs often sit at 200 or 250 per person. For standard offset 100 is possible, but the economics usually start to make sense from 250 upwards. We name those points before the proposal so there are no surprises.
GF Smith Colorplan, Gmund Cotton, Gmund Bio Cycle or Colorplan Mist are our regulars. For very thick cards we work with duplex and triplex builds of two or three layers joined in a coloured core.
Yes. Briefings and layout rounds run entirely remote. Proof reviews go through the printer, finished cards ship directly to your address, whether in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Bremen or a smaller location.
Start a project?
Tell me briefly what it is about — in a 30-minute first conversation we clarify whether and how we can work together.