Business Card Design Tips:
Make A Super Business Card
The following section presents some advice on how to make the most of the online business card templates and design tools. Likely the most important factor for good business card design is to take your time. To make an exceptional business card it is important to become familiar with the design tools and templates. It is possible to create a card online in a matter of minutes; however, the time and thought you put into creating your business card will be reflected in the finished card design. If you are strapped for time bookmark us and return whenever the time allows. We offer two different online design tools from two separate printers. The tools are very different, but the following design tips apply to both.
Find A Suitable Business Card Template
There are over 15,000 "design ready" templates available for your business cards, as well as, thousands of offline photos that can be entered into the Option 2 design tool upon request. The backgrounds are broken down into twenty main categories in an attempt to organize similar images. From those main categories countless sub categories / themes branch out. It is a good idea to check out at least all the main categories as sometimes a great image can be missed. For example you may want a image of a dairy cow on your business card and can not seem to find a decent image in the animals category; however, there are also images of dairy cows in the farming and agriculture section. We would be pleased to help in your quest simply email us and explain what type of photo or theme you are seeking for your business cards.
Business Card Design - Good & Bad
Proofread Your Business Card
Proof read your text/information and consult a dictionary if necessary. It is very easy to make a spelling error or accidentally enter a wrong number. Our systems are automated and we do not manually transfer your text - the responsibility of proofing lies with you. Please be sure your information is entered correctly - and as mentioned before take your time.
Design Fields, Fonts &
Layouts Can Be Changed
The default fonts, colors and layout settings in the design tools can easily be changed. You have full control over those variables and the fields, fonts and layouts are only suggestions. If you would prefer to use the suggested email field to convey your company motto.....just fill in the blanks. If the font color blends in with the background simply change it. Remember the design tool has a minimum choice of 14 font types and at least 20 color choices for your text.
Do You Need Space Between Lines?
If you want to leave a space between lines of text. Clear the field and hit the space bar once to indent the field. When the proof is updated that line will be left as a space. If you just leave that line out without hitting the space bar - the fields above and below will move down without a space between them. Keep in mind you will be giving up a potential field of text when adding that line break.
Focus On Contrast....Not Camouflage
Choose a text color that contrasts against the background image. For example on a black background you would use white for your text. You can also change the text layout so that your information steers clear of blending into the image. This can be accomplished by changing the layout positioning or flipping the image. Make sure your font color does not blend in with the background image. You can even experiment with using more than one color for your text.
Easily Readable Large Text
...Microscopes Not Required
Avoid making text too small. If you have a large company name try breaking it up into two lines. For example a company called Stan's Motorcycle & Scooter Repair could have "Stan's Motorcycle" on one line and "& Scooter Repair" below it. This would allow you to use larger text on both lines and make the name standout. When designing try to remember that a business card is only 3.5" by 2". Do not let the large image in the design tool fool you into thinking your text is large enough. Try to think in terms of the proportion of a business card. Place a business card against your monitor to get a rough idea of your proportions and sizes.
>>>Get Creative With Characters<<<
It may be useful to make use of different characters on your keyboard other than just letters and numbers. For example ~-_#*>< - want to make a cool border or emphasize something >>>>try this<<<<<< ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. In addition to the keyboard supported characters the design tool also recognizes other entities such as ©, ® and ™. Here is the code to generate some common entities: © will generate ©, ® will generate ® and finally ™ will generate ™. The design tool must be updated twice before these characters will appear. If have another special character and need the code simply contact us to determine if it is possible.
Denote Your Numbers
Ensure your numbers have the proper denotation. Make sure your clients know which is your phone number and which is your fax. It is a common problem that a customer can make a card with three different numbers without adding abbreviations such as Ph: Fax: Cell: before or after the numbers. However, it should not be necessary to denote email and website addresses. Most people know that joe@hotmail.com is an email and HotMail.com is a website. You may want to put the www. before your website; however, the http:// is not necessary. Type it in your browser first to test it, but generally typing www.mywebsite.com and mywebsite.com will end up in the same place.
Don't Let The Monitor Fool You
If you think the image or font on your screen seems blurry keep in mind that a computer monitor is only showing about 7% or less of the actual final resolution of the printed image. The images you view online are about 72 to 96 dpi (dots per inch); however, we utilize graphic images that will be lithographically printed at between 360 to 600 dpi. However, in terms of text proportion remember the design tool is showing something far larger than a standard business card.
Find The Artistic /
Computer Savvy Employee...or Hire A Pro
Sometimes the best business cards come from allowing the most artistically and computer inclined person from your office or household to design them. Finally, if you have neither the time nor patience to design your cards online we do offer professionally designed business cards through KOCards.com. If you are neither computer nor design savvy simply allow a graphic artist to make custom cards to your exact theme and specifications.
Technical Problems
A common problem people is that the browser security settings in "Internet Options" are set too high and interfere with ordering. Settings at medium security should not pose a problem, but occasionally people have trouble completing the order because the settings are set so high they will not even allow a SSL certified secure transaction. There are some programs that go as far as to prevent animated gif files from rendering properly. The neon sign at the top of this page should be flashing, if it is not you have a program that is stopping it.
