Retro designs take inspiration from the 50s and 60s. Characteristics include dynamic graphics, space travel, pin up girls, old car designs, or war related graphics. Illustrations (vs. photographs) were mainly used as full color printing was expensive. This means you’ll see designs of retro business cards that make use of a few solid colors.
This illustration style made use of bold lines, again with solid chunks of color (via):
There are also a few signature shapes that help give that retro feeling:
Font Choice
The font choice plays a large role in creating that unique retro look. As you’ll see in the examples and design styles below, the fonts are either chunky bold texts or bold scripts. Here are three retro style fonts that are free to download:
Retro Business Cards – Examples, Ideas and Inspiration
Duct Tape and Glitter Business Cards (via)
TDH Creative Business Card Design (via)
Shan Thompson (via)
Press Pass (via)
Modern Retro Designs
Here are some business card designs that use retro elements, but have a more minimalist/modern style:
Javier Garcia (via)
Highbrow Men’s Grooming Lounge (via)
The First Sixty-Five (via)
Extras
Our Printers/Designers *[coming soon]* post has a bunch of links to top notch graphic designers and printers that can get you started printing your retro cards. If you want to get started right now and print your cards instantly online, then check out these retro styled templates from moo.com:
I Made You A Mix Tape Template – Moo.com
Aliens – Moo.com
Keep the retro theme going with these business card holders:
Fuuvi Retro Cassette Tape Card Holder (via)
Buck Rogers Retro Business Card Holder (via)
