I recently designed the business cards above for a client at work. The larger card in the upper-left is the design that he chose. When he first chose that design, I was happy that he didn’t choose what I thought was the worst design, but I also didn’t think that he chose the best design. After talking about it with a co-worker, I realized that the designs that I liked the best were the ones that I had put the most amount of work into. I had drawn the compass in the background of the card in the upper-right and the one below it. I had also used a reference photo of birch bark in combination with an existing font to create a new font where I had drawn in the birch bark (in upper- and lower-right cards).

In the card that he chose, I had used the star tool to create the sunset and an existing “wood” font. And my least favorite designs, the ones in the lower-left and middle-right, I had used the circle and star tools in Illustrator. Not much work.

Not long after I had finished these designs, I watched this Ted Talk.

I thought it was interesting, and it gave me a new perspective on designing for other people.