C2- the making of a business card

So I've come to discover that business card design is tough.
Wait, let me rephrase that... GOOD business card design is really tough. My friend Connie- after two days of working on her own business cards, can officially testify to this. Designing your own business cards, as a designer, is even harder. It's like an architect designing their own house, and interior designer picking their bedroom paint color, a graphic designer designing their own wedding invitations... (gee, why do these all sound so familiar?).
And why though, is a business card in general so hard to design? Think about it- it's like everything you want people to know about you- in super-uber-condensed-purely-graphic form. It's like YOU concentrated, just add water- or in this case- just add a paycheck and you've got a job! Yes, add to all this the pressure of designing a business card for yourself, and YOU are a self-employed designer working on keeping the bacon coming in. Oh, the layers of complication just keep on coming. Not only is it super-concentrated-you in graphic form, but it has to be clear, it has to grab you, and maybe most importantly, it can't get complicated (sound's like designing business cards and my opinion on relationships are pretty similar... but that's another post altogether...). And by "not getting complicated", I mean, graphic hierarchy is KING. I'm always going on about this, but pay attention at graphic design in magazines, in bus ads, whatever, what do you see first, and then what do you notice second? Once you start noticing this... you understand how important that is. What I truly enjoy in what I do as a stationer, I guess you'd call me, you have to marry (ooo, sorry, please pardon the pun) the balance between the written hierarchy and graphic. Sorry to make another architecture reference, but it really is like architecture and interior design- they have to work together.

I love (and I can't emphasize this enough) the evolution of design. Love it. So this is why I'm choosing my friend's design challenge to illustrate here.... because it always starts in a place of "I can't look at this anymore", and ends in a lovely happy place. Here is where she started, options and more options:
Here are the back side options...

and here are the front side options...
And after a lengthy discussion on (among other things) the merit and importance of using the word "Chicago" on the card, even though seems like everything is virtual now (Yes, it's important, we concluded- simply because it's Chicago. Urban, beautiful, raw, sincere, Chicago- and with a name like Connie Cermak, why wouldn't you specify Chicago?!), HERE is the final product...

Beautiful! Bravo, Connie!
And to those reading this, I would keep an eye on this one... www.conniecermak.com ... coming to a computer near you very soon.