How to design a business card?

Author: Simon Bar | Vertico Co-Founder

A business card represents the next step in making your small business dream a reality. And for many potential customers, it's the first interaction they'll have with your brand - so, make sure it's a positive one.

Before starting the craft, we need to check that we have a number of things ready:

• Logo
• Brand color schema

Find your purpose

Every conversation has a purpose, and so does our business card.

Try to find your greatest need and the brand goals you represent, here are some questions you can ask yourself before preparing the design:

• What is the purpose of the company / product?
• What does the product solve?
• Who is your target audience?
• What is the company trying to convey to the audience?
• What are you trying to convey?
• What are the things that are unique to you or the brand?

All of these will help you better understand the purpose and elements you would like to use.

For example, if the audience is younger, we will use a wider color palette and look for the "next generation design", while the slightly older audience will use a classic look.

Find a template, shape and size

In today's world everyone is trying to find the new trend, the special look that no one else has. Therefore, over the years, new and less classic designs for business cards have been developed:

• Vertical cards
• Metal cards
• Rounded corners cards
• Transparent cards
• Cards made of PVC

Try to find the shape that suits you, the right size, and the type of material with which you will want to produce the business card, each will help you choose a good template and know how to place your information in a quality way.

Note that your business card is neither too small nor too large, there are a number of standards that can be used:

• North America: 3.5 X 2 inches
• Europe: 3.346 x 2.165 inches

Also remember to place outlier lines:

• Bleed area: An area that is cut when creating the card.
• Cutting line
• Safety line: An area where no important information is found due to a misleading fear when cutting the card.

Choose a template

Choosing a quality template can save you a lot of time, because most things are already placed in the business card and all that is left is to exchange your details and add a few unique elements or alternatively try to take inspiration from another work and try to make one.

For those of us who do not know how to design, it is possible to use the services of local freelancers or use Fiverr.

Here are some tools that can help you choose a design:

• Canva : A service for designing elements and templates, where you can find convenient templates for designing business cards, posts, documents and more.
• TemplateMonster : A service for buying templates in various fields.
• Evanto : A service for buying templates in various fields.
• Pinterest : A service for advertising designs, you can take inspiration from other designers.

Of course with a quick Google search you can find many more quality tools, some free and some costing money that will allow you to build a business card quickly.

If you are a designer you can use tools like InDesign, PhotoShop and Adobe XD to create business cards.

Creative

Design is a personal matter, each one loves different things, some will like minimalist design, some will love cluttered design, some will love classic design and some modern.

So try to choose the design line that you want to convey to your audience and try to imagine in your mind how to use it in practice.

If we talk about the elements that are usually put in the business card, the main one is the logo, give your logo a place, it creates brand awareness and it conveys the most important thing - your name and your logo.

In addition, think of other elements that you would like to add such as decorations, shapes, and more.

Treat the area of the business card like a real estate or apartment and try to place everything in the property just like furniture until you see that it works for you (try to do it without designing all the elements perfectly, try to do it on a white background or even on a smooth sheet of paper)

If you do not design in your blood, and do not know how to use tools like Photoshop to build elements, try using Canva here as well.

Typography

The font is also important, and it should be compatible with the design language of the brand and the business card.

If you have a font that fits the exhibit, use it and if not, try to find the one that suits you best and use it.

One important thing - do not use a few fonts it is confusing and usually does not look good, if you decide to do so check the design several times and I would recommend consulting a designer about it.

Here are some font explorer websites:

• DaFont
• Fonts.com
• 1001fonts

Organise your info

There is information that is more relevant and there is less that, you will choose what is important to you - but there are a number of things we must place in our business card.

• Name of card issuer
• Company name
• Title(Try to be unique with words like: guru, master, etc.)
• Phone number
• Mail address
• Website address

Optional:

• Social media
• Address
• Slogan

And of course there is a lot more information that can be put into the business card, try to stay famous and leave whitespaces so that things are clear and good looking.

Special finishes

Try to be special in the look of the business card, in the shape, maybe even in the design elements you put there.

Try to penetrate what you need to convey in the elements, if you are a company selling luxury real estate - use elements that convey luxury.

Also, do not be afraid to use statements, even if they are a bit funny or cynical, the more special your business card is, the more people will think about it ...

And let's really admit a business card that is just with contact information is pretty boring, try to think of a statement that will make the other side think about it - be witty.

Call To Action

Leaving details is nice, but we must stimulate the other party to take action when he receives the business card, just as we leave an impression of him taking action after a sales call.

Here are some classic examples of such things:

• QR code for questionnaires

(Link to the site for creating a QR code)

• Website
• Mailing list
• Special offer / discount

Just make sure the call to action is clear, concise and concise.

The whole world is one big premise

Before you place the order, ask people and colleagues what they think of the business card, what are the things they pay more attention to, and check whether the message you were trying to convey has passed properly.