When you start out in the professional field, it is the business cards that acts as your identity and also something to give away your impression to the person you are giving the card to. So to give a lasting impression with your business card, it should be a properly designed one from all aspects. It is quite possible that you are not as much experienced with the print world as you would require seeing that how different a business card can seem when it’s actually printed from the one designed and edited on Photoshop. The smart move in this regard would be to take this first print as simply a proof and take this chance to edit and correct stuff in the card and then send it for final printing so that you can be sure that the turnout will be successful.
And here I have brought you some tips that might come useful to you as you set on designing and printing your business card. Let’s have a look.
Keeping in View the Size, Unit and Resolution
The standard business card size is the best option in all cases, with an exception of a few. You surely wouldn’t want someone to leave your card within the depths of their drawers just because it doesn’t fit in their wallet, would you!
The basic settings are to use 1134*720 pixels, that is, 9.6 cm in width and 6.1 in height and the color mode as “CMYK Color”. If you are a Photoshop user, here is what you can do:
- “Edit > Preferences > Units & Rulers
- Change Rulers unit to “cm”
- Type units to “Points”
- Set Print Resolution to “300 pixels/inch”
CMYK – A Better Option than RGB
Most of the web designers who are not involved in print are much like to use RGB color mode. The colors we see on paper are different than what we set on the monitor. Monitors take the additive RGB color mode method which takes the three colors; red, blue and green to produce all the other colors. Whereas we need subtractive colors instead of additive for paper as the light emitted by the monitor is absorbed by the paper.
That is where CMYK color mode comes to use, which is a subtractive method. CMYK uses yellow, black, magenta and cyan to cancel the effect of the blue, green and red to produce other colors so use it for best results.
Saturation
Sometimes the color on print comes out dull and it gets disappointing. So if you want to set it right, you can increase the saturation and hue either by adding a layer of color adjustment or by choosing to add colors to all the elements of your design separately. The final look will seem a little brighter but it will be just fine on paper.
Size of the Text and Logo
A small thing like size of the text and logo holds much importance in making a business card attractive as these are the two things you want the card holder to read the first and remember. The minimum standard size that you can use is 6 points. Put your address and name bigger than other text and bold it to emphasize on it, ½ a point bigger than the rest should do. And about the logo name, it should be at least 12 points to make it distinctive from the rest of the elements.
There are also some other points that you need to pay attention to while designing a business card. The major ones are:
- Make sure that you use the font that is designed exclusively for print otherwise your print will come out to be smaller.
- Common sense implies that a thing as important as a business card needs proper testing and proofreading before sending for the print so that it can save you from the trouble of any inconvenience or loss.
- Keep a balance between your text and the background so that it’s clearly readable.
- You can have fun using your creativity for the business card, however, keep the design simple. As creativity and simplicity combined can do wonders. And ‘keeping simple’ rule is not only applicable to designing a business card but also to print design, programming and web design.
Final Words
A business card may seem just a little piece of card but there is a lot of effort that has to be put to design it to make it impressive. From the size of the font to the type of font; from the color adjustment to the balance between the background color and font and from proofreading to having a test, all this should be done with care and attention to reach at a final result that should be perfect.
