Occasionally, someone who receives one of Keri Storjohann’s round business cards will voice that nagging concern: How am I supposed to fit this in my card holder?

“I tell them, ‘Keep it in your shirt pocket, close to your heart,’” joked Storjohann, whose card carries the same purple circle logo used throughout her company’s branding effort. Or, on a more practical level, she suggests folding it in half to make it fit.

“Some people may say it’s impractical, but it’s made an impact for us,” said Storjohann, president of Solutions Inc., a Des Moines-based marketing company. “It’s just one of those little wows. It makes them stop and take notice.”

Though they’re small and sometimes an afterthought, business cards can have a huge impact on how your business is perceived, experts say. At the same time, the card’s style must be suitable to the company and the image that it wants to present.

At Triplett Office Essentials Corp., for instance, representatives selling office supplies carry a card that looks like a miniature yellow legal pad, while those in the high-end business furniture division use an understated card with black and gold lettering. The company employs an in-house graphic artist to design cards for its clients as well.

“I think the card has to suit the industry that you’re dealing with,” said the company’s president, Dick Triplett. “The card should be very tasteful and appeal to the person you’re calling on.”

Triplett falls into the traditional camp when it comes to shapes, however.

“I think people like consistent shapes, because a lot of people put them in a box or a file, so the shape of the card is pretty consistent throughout. If a guy has a card that’s a shape that doesn’t fit, where’s it going? Probably in the basket.”

Mitch Eaton, president of The Printing Station, said he has seen some very creative concepts that designers have submitted for their clients.

“Thicker paper seems to be fairly popular, with heavy ink coverage on the back, or duplex colors, with white on one side and some color on the back,” Eaton said. “The only thing that’s been consistent is that we always do the traditional (black ink on white) cards.”

Some design firms have been coming up with “some fairly bold colors” lately, he added, particularly some shades of greens and yellows, which seem to be coming back into vogue.

The amount businesses are willing to spend on cards varies widely with the value they place on them, Eaton said. Though you can get by with a box of 250 for as little as $15 to $20, it’s not uncommon to get into the $100 to $300 range for an order, he said.

For Steven Whitehead, president of DNAtoday, his plastic business card is both his product and his best selling tool. The West Des Moines-based company specializes in making smart cards that use a person’s unique DNA information as an identifier, both on a chip that can be scanned and with DNA code numbers printed on the back.

“It certainly stands out,” said Whitehead, who estimates he has handed out 5,000 of his cards in his travels worldwide, which he uses to demonstrate his confidence that using DNA numbers as a personal identification system is safe. The numbers used, while unique to each person, don’t reveal any personal genetic or medical information, he said.

“The first reaction is to the smart chip itself; that leads to a lot of questions about that, and then the numbers on the back lead to many questions about DNA information,” he said.

For other businesses, simplicity is the key to an effective business card. When Mike Feller was putting together the concept for an upscale teahouse, he worked with a designer to come up with a card for Gong Fu Tea. The design he chose is a square white card with a light-green calligraphic lowercase “t” and the company’s name in bold lettering.

“When we were putting together the business card, we wanted to create an image for the company,” Feller said. “The name itself can sound weird, but when you see the card, it transforms what could have been a goofy name into something nice.”