Lessons
Class Introduction
03:42 2What Information to Include on your Business Card
01:56 3Size & Orientation of a Business Card
03:31 4Choosing a Hierarchy & Layout for your Business Card
09:10 5Choosing & Using Fonts for your Business Card
09:36 6Color Combinations on a Business Card
06:47 7Logos & Images on a Business Card
06:53 8Printing & Paper Options for a Business Card
03:54Lesson Info
Prepping Your Business Card Files
So when you're prepping your files for the printer, you should probably know the output from the start, and so well, whoever your printer is, talk to them at the very beginning and say, like, hey, I want a print on linen paper, how is this going to affect the way the color works or the way they think so absorbed? Um, but if you're working from an online vendor what's great is they have template files, so it can't really get any easier from a designer's perspective because download the files, they have different options for different software, open it and start designing, right? But make sure that you follow all of the specs given by the printer, so I'm a big fan of temple files big fan of using online printing vendors, and you know when you open the template file it's going to look something like this, so your standard card is three point five by two, but you're going to need to build in a bleed area, and that will be in the template for you. We can also build it in yourself, right? So...
the outside bleed is going to be approximately point one six depends on the vendor, but what this means is, if you have a card with an image on the back, you want to make sure that it prince over the entire back side so you need to size the image larger and then the printed size of the card because if you don't do that, you run the risk of having a little bit of white peek around the sides and that's not gonna look good. Another thing to keep in mind with your card. I'm not going to show any detail I'm just going to show a physical card if you put a border on this card. So if you put a square within a square it's probably not going to be cut perfectly. Um, so don't put any borders on your card because you run the risk of that the way the card being cut having the borders look like the squares off center. So in terms of distance from the edge, you also want to make sure any text or pertinent information is within the safe zone. So the dash line is the safe zone, so all the information needs to be within their and even like as far away from that as possible and that's about one eighth of a margin inside. So just to review some of it items that we talked about when printing make sure that your texas in the safe area make sure the image is air, all full bleed make sure resolution is a three hundred d p I so that's high quality print maximum file size right ah lot of printers will ask for pdf pse and pds print ready pds have all of that information built in there so you don't have to worry about that pds or the way to go unless your card is like a heavy photography card then maybe you want to say that as a j peg even so pdf sehr sort of the go to for this this process when printing these files spell check spellcheck there's nothing worse than getting your card back and being like oh my email address is wrong and then you have five hundred cards and you can't do anything with them so make sure that you spell check show it to your friend get feedback from other people a lot of times when we're designing our own stuff we don't see the errors so this is an example of my card it's an in design I have the safe zone, the yellow it's actually a yellow background so I made sure the yellow box stretched all the way to the and of the bleed. The text is a comfortable margin spacing away from the edge of the safe zone, so I'm pretty sure that when I get this printed all the information that I want on the card will be there nothing will be cut off nothing's gonna look funny so and I love unicorns so just to recap all the stuff we talked about try to talk to your printer at the beginning or figure out who's going to print your card at the very beginning. So there's an online vendor, you, khun, start working right away with their template file. Be selective with the information that you put on your card. Less is more. You don't want to overwhelm people. Just give them exactly what they need. Pay really close attention to typography. Create a hierarchy of information on your card, so you, khun the stuff that you want to stand out and be seen. First, you can use typography to achieve that, use color and images wisely, and keep your layout clean and simple. So I say, let's, do this let's dive into making your own cards. In the next section, I'll be working in design, and I'll take you through the process of designing a card from start to finish, and we'll put everything. We just went over into action.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Hey Lara! I just checked out your course on CL, How to Design Business Cards, and absolutely loved it! Everything about the course was awesome from content, information, presentation, and your personality. Would you please do more courses? You have a wealth on knowledge, I can tell, and with your easy-going presentation it is a great combo. I would love you to do a course on InDesign or simply on design with various projects from business cards, posters, brochures, etc. Anyway, thank you for that course. You rock! Thank you for your time.
a Creativelive Student
I'm designing my first business card and Lara took it step by step so clearly that I've got something I can be proud of right out of the gate. She showed great strategies to make them professional and attractive and bonus ideas about how to get people to keep them around for reference. That's pure genius!
Sara C. Madsen
Great, little course. Inspiring.