First things first
First we need to grab a standard business card template. A PSD file will be necessary for this tutorial since I will be using photoshop. Here is the template I will be using.
2″ x 3.5″ Standard Business Card Template
Open up the template and make sure that the guides are turned on, we need these to see where the card is cut and where the safe lines are for your content.
Now take a look at the guide lines, I have marked them below. The “cut line” is where the printer actually cuts the card, just keep that in mind. The other line is the safe line. We want the design to bleed over this line, but we dont want any of our information such as our phone number or business name or whatever outside of this line. If you do place anything outside the safe line, you run the chance of it being cut off or not showing up at all on your card.
The last thing you want to do is change the color space to CYMK, which is what the printer uses for printing. If we send it to them in RGB, it will come back looking alot different (color-wise) than you thought it would. See the image below for where to find it.
Next step: The design
I am a freelance photographer as a side gig, so I am going to design my card based off of that. Photography is all about the proper use of lighting, and I am going to use that as my theme. Now that you have that information, go ahead and open up the template in photoshop and fill the background layer with black. Next select the type tool with your preferred calligraphic font, with white for the font color and a font size of roughly 30 pt. Now type your name or business name in the center and warp it to the settings below.
This is my result, you should see something roughly like this depending on your font and how long your name is. Adjust it accordingly.
Now that our name is done, we need to put what we do on the card. This is my photography card, so I am going to put “photographer” right below my name. I used a helvettica type font in all caps at a 7.5 pt font size. So far this is what I have.
Next we need to put a little bit of flair on our card to catch the eye. Im going to use a film-strip effect above and below my name in a dark grey color. To do this, just use the rounded rectangle tool and make a single rectangle that is roughly 30 x 40 px. Now just copy and paste the shape and space them out about 15 to 20 pixels apart until you get something like this.
Now merge those layers into one layer, duplicate that layer, and place the duplicate just below your name, and set both layers to an opacity of 20%.
All that is left now is adding your phone number, email address, and website to the bottom of the card and you have a finished product to show the masses. Here is my finished product.
Please feel free to send me your guys designs, I would love to see them. I will be making a continuation to this post with information on how and where to print your cards for the best quality and price. Thanks for reading guys.
greate! so nice