Business Card Design and Printing Tips - Part One

How to Design and Print Professional Looking Business Cards

Make Your Own Business Cards

If you want something unique in the way of a calling or business

card, why not design your own? Your design options are unlimited, unlike when you order cards online or use one of the canned designs in your graphics software program.

Be sure to honor your program’s copyright and terms of use. Most prohibit the use of their designs for commercial purposes.

Some allow you to purchase a commercial use license for a small additional fee. Visit graphic design copyrights for more information.

For these reasons, I take care not to use any of the clipart that comes with my programs. I use free fonts or fonts for which I have commercial use license. With photos and your scanner, you can create lots of original graphic designs.

The business card above uses a photo of the four-foot long sign that hangs over my shop. Frequently I make cards for clients incorporating photos of them, their pets, their homes, etc. Corporate clients give me their logos (which they own) to put on cards or signs.

To learn how to scan your own backgrounds from 3D objects, visit Scanning Tips.

For working with photos, read my photo manipulation tips.

ScrapGirls is a great site where you can purchase commercial use licenses for some wonderful graphic tools.

Business Card Design and Printing Tips - Part One

How to Correct a Distorted Photo

Here are a couple of business card examples I designed for artist friends.

If they don’t have a digital photo of their artwork, I take one for them. Since there is usually some perspective distortion when you take a photo of a large piece of artwork, you need to correct to make a nice rectangular representation of the work.

Correcting perspective distortion is easy as pie using Photoshop or a similar graphic design program. These directions are for Photoshop CS2, but almost all graphics packages are very similar.

Open the picture. Select the Crop Tool from the tool bar. The icon looks and sort of works like a folding laundry rack.

You’ll notice that, toward the top of the screen, a bar has appeared which contains all the options for the Crop Tool.

Check the box that says "Perspective".

Position your cursor at one of the corners of the artwork and drag toward the opposite corner to create a box for cropping.

Don’t worry if you over- or under-shoot. The little blocks in the middle of each side of the crop box allow you to adjust before cropping. Place the cursor on one until it activates by displaying a double-headed arrow and make your adjustments.

Now comes the fun part. Let’s say, for example, that the right edge of the artwork slants from lower right to upper left. Position your cursor on the upper right corner of the crop box until it activates (and a double-headed curving arrow appears); push the corner of the crop box to the left until the right side of the box matches the angle of the artwork in the photo.

When you’re satisfied that you have defined how you want the image cropped, right click and select Crop.

Watch as the image magically straightens itself before your eyes. Pretty amazing, huh?

Going "Back in Time" with Photoshop

If you over- or under-corrected, you can go back a step or two using the History Folder. If the History Folder is not displayed on your screen, click Window on the top tool bar; then check History.

I always keep the History Folder displayed. It comes in very handy.

Note that the History Folder displays recent actions you have taken step-by-step. To go "back in time", click on the previous step or the one before that until you have undone the effect you don’t like.

There is a limit to the number of actions saved in the History Folder; so don’t go too far down a path you have doubts about. You may not be able to undo enough to correct.

As well, once you Save a file, the History of your recent steps is lost. One final note on History: if you back up several steps and then take a new action, you’ve set yourself on another path.

In other words, you’ve changed History.

Read part two of Business Card Design Tips