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Extra info
If using a non-standard business card size, e.g. 90mm x 50mm then please point this out when sending in the print file. If you leave the card outline showing, which is easily removed by one of our artworkers at the card planning stage, then this will help us determine exactly the card size you are using.
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If you are sending in a pdf, and not sure how to convert all text (fonts) into outlines, as explained in the tutorial opposite, then please include the font details in your email and whether the design was done on a PC or Mac. Many printers use both systems but often the fonts, although sharing the same name, can be slightly different, especially with issues such as letter spacing (kerning).
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Spot colours or process
If you are not sure if you should be using spot colours in your artwork, or CMYK (process colours), then check out this info on Spot vs. Process Colours.
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Colours & Monitors
A monitor is a backlit device so consequently colours look very vibrant onscreen especially with many of the newer flat screen varieties.
This has to be taken into consideration when designing logos, or graphics of any kind that will need to be printed.
Using a flat ink will never compete with what you see onscreen.
A standard monitor uses Red, Green & Blue (RGB) to define its colour output whereas with the printing process, and I'm referring to a standard lithographic one not digital, uses either a Pantone colour matching system, or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black) process.
Do not expect to see the colour viewable on your monitor exactly reproduced in your print job. Unless you have a professional colour calibrated monitor, the colours you see onscreen will not be accurate.
For instance, a bright orange (Pantone 021) looks great onscreen, but when trying to produce this in a 4 colour process (CMYK) will look a little on the brown side and certainly nothing like you see onscreen. Using a spot colour, e.g. Pantone 021 overcomes this but sometimes this is not possible due to costs.
If your software supports it, make sure you are working in CMYK and not RGB.
At first glance, designing a business card seems an easy enough task to complete as we're only dealing with a relatively small piece of artwork however, it does need a little thought beforehand to get the results you are hoping for. A person's business card needs to offer a positive reflection of their business. A smart, professional-looking card, printed on quality material says a lot about your company and gives the holder that extra confidence often needed at an initial sales meeting.
There are so many software packages available these days to make your task possible from semi-pro software such as: Publisher, Word etc. up to the high end offerings such as In-Design, QuarkXpress, Illustrator & Photoshop etc.
Whichever package you use there are certain points that must be taken onboard before starting the work.
I would say the most important point to consider is using suitable hi-res graphics, (logos, trade logos etc.). For more info on this, please look under the 'Common business card design problems' area on the right hand side of this page.
(1). Getting started.
Start by setting your workspace to A4 or A5 and drawing a box with a thin outline. (e.g. 0.5 point). Our Standard card size is 85mm x 55mm. (Landscape or portrait).
Our Laminated cards are 88mm x 55mm. (Landscape or portrait).
(2). Turn on rulers in your design package (often Ctrl. R), and set the top left hand corner to: x = 0, y = 0. This will help you to position the margin guides.
Note: you could set your workspace to 85mm x 55mm, but I think it's easier to visualise the finished card by viewing it on a larger sheet, so the card outline is showing.
(3). Next, set up your margin guides, preferably at 5mm. If you have very little info to go on the card, then consider using larger margins.
Before we go any further, you may have heard the term 'bleeds' when reading about print files. The term is easy to understand and shouldn't cause you any problems.
Bleeds explained
Basically, a bleed is artwork that goes over the edge of the card, or sheet if dealing with other types of stationery. You'll probably notice that many colour brochures & leaflets are printed right to the edge of the sheet.
If your design needs to have a bleed then it’s important to allow 3mm overlap (see left image). This gives the guillotine operator a chance to cut into the artwork and produce a good finished card. (see right image).
Why do we need a bleed? If the artwork ended at the edge of the card and the guillotine was only 0.5mm off, then we could end up with a thin white strip down one edge of the card.
Also, if you can imagine a large stack of cards sitting on the guillotine ready to be trimmed. There'll always be the odd card that is sticking out a fraction so any artwork on that particular sheet, (and there could be 4, 8 or even 12 cards on that sheet), that hasn't allowed for bleeds could be a fraction out, giving us the white line effect mentioned above.
Extending the artwork over the edge of the card allows for a little leeway at trimming time.
Before trimming
After trimming
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(4). Back to our card. We are now ready to add the logo (if required) and content. In this instance, we don't need to worry about bleeds, so everything is kept to our 5mm margin.
(5). Now hide the guides to get a better idea of the finished card.
Note: the outline of the card has been left in for clarity, but this would be removed before printing.
Unless you are using a professional print package, it’s probably best to let us do the final layout of the card as depending on certain circumstances, we'd need to decide how many cards to 'plan-up'.
At this stage, you could simply leave the card as above, with the outline showing, and make a pdf of the design and email this file across.
(7). Converting fonts to outlines (Adobe In-Design/Illustrator)
One final task is to Convert Fonts to Outlines. If you're not sure how to do this, just check out this easy-to-follow tutorial:
If you're using a program such as Adobe In-Design, or Illustrator it is recommended you convert all text to outlines.This effectively removes the need for you to supply any fonts you've used.
Apart from the legal aspect, if you've just spent a lot of money on some real nice designer fonts, you won't be wanting to send them out for free!
Converting fonts to outlines effectively makes the text non-editable as all the characters in the typeface become single small graphics. Before you proceed to convert to outlines, it might be worth saving the file under a different name as a backup, because once outlines have been created the text no longer becomes editable.
With all text now converted we then proceed to make a pdf of the file.
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If you would like to know how cards are 'planned' for printing, then the following shows how it is normally done.
(8). Planning your cards
Please Note: This step is not necessary when sending in a file for printing, as most printers will prefer to do this step themselves. It's really just to show what happens to your card at 'the other end'.
Firstly, remove the stroke (visible outline of the card). Then a copy of the card is made and positioned exactly next to the original. i.e. 85mm from the x = 0 co-ordinate. In a pro. print package you would use the step-and-repeat command.
We then select both cards and do an exact copy 55mm down from the y = 0 co-ordinate.
We now need to generate crop (or cut) marks that will enable the guillotine operator to accurately cut the cards.
Again, a pro. package will allow you to do this automatically. (please see below ref. registration).
IMPORTANT: Crop marks use a special colour called ‘registration’.
This colour is recognised by an imagesetter (the device that produces film and/or plates for the printing press) and is automatically output on all colour plates. The press operator overlays one set of registration marks over the next colour set to accurately align the plates.
It is recommended the colour 'registration' is not used for anything other than registration marks/crop marks etc.
Allowing for a bleed is only slightly more complicated as we need to use ‘gutters’.
I will leave the card outlines showing to explain the process easier.
We do the step-and-repeat as before but we need to allow an extra 5mm for the gutter. (see below).
Next: showing guttered cards with final crop marks. Again, outlines are shown for clarity.
If you want to do your own planning of cards then I would definitely recommend you check with your printer as many of them, even with non-bleed cards still require a gutter. This could be 3mm or 5mm, or none at all so it's worth a phone call.
(10). If crop marks, bleeds, gutters etc. are boring you senseless then don’t despair, just send us a card layout as below (please leave the card outline showing) and we can take care of the layout.
The previous examples show a 4-up card layout whereas there are many occasions where we would actually use a 4, 6, 8, 10 or even a 20 card layout, depending on the number of names, quantity of cards etc.
Tip! When ordering business cards, try and get as many names as possible in your organisation to order cards at the same time, as this will ultimately save you money.
For instance, if you order 500 cards for 1 name, we would still have to plan the cards 4-up.
If however, you ordered 500 cards for 2 names, (250 each) we could still give you the 500 rate to cover both names. (Not with laminated cards although there is a reduction for grouping).
It follows that ordering 4 names (125 cards each) would still cost you the 500 rate, as we've managed to get all 4 names on one set up. (The biggest savings are with spot colour cards, as these are easier to produce than the laminated, thermo or die-cut varieties).
Many companies order cards for 20, 50, or even 100+ employees so grouping of names becomes even more cost effective in these situations.
Laminated business cards have become very popular and, although more expensive than a 'plain' card, can become a viable alternative when name grouping is used.
Hope this helps!
However, if any points need clarification or you just need a little help please don't hesitate to contact us, and we'll do our best to assist.
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Here are some details to help make the job easier for you . . .
Title = Designing a Business Card
Description = An easy-to-follow tutorial on designing a business card from scratch, and how to prepare the artwork for sending to your print supplier.
How to design your own business card.
A simple, straightforward
way of designing your business cards
Design info
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Designing a Letterhead
An easy to follow tutorial on designing your letterhead.
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Common business card
design problems
Low-Res/High-Res graphics
Many people are confused as to why something may look great onscreen but won't print without the dreaded 'jaggies'.
Basically, a standard computer monitor has a resolution of 72dpi. (Some monitors are higher resolution these days however 72dpi will suffice for our purposes), Websites are designed at 72dpi for this reason.
For lithographic print we need 300dpi, so it follows that web graphics or any low-res file will give poor results when output on a hi-res device such as an imagesetter.
If the only image you have is on your website, then it will probably need redrawing at a higher resolution.
Most designers are switched on to the fact that you may need your logo for printing at some stage, so if you've had a logo designed for you, check with your designer to see if they have a hi-res file available for you.
If your logo is 72dpi don't fall into the trap of boosting the resolution from 72 to 300dpi in a paint program such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro etc. as this won't work. 'Upping' the resolution in this way just interpolates the image, i.e. adds similar coloured pixels to the image, which in turn can 'up' the image size but makes for a more 'blurry/fuzzy' effect and certainly not suitable for general print.
