Business card design is never as simple as slapping your logo and contact info onto a document and sending it off to the printer. There are quite a few things to consider when creating a card – depending on the design, your budget and the printing company.

Each job has slightly different specifications, but there are a few fundamental requirements that must be fulfilled to make a basic print-ready business card. Before you submit your final file, you should be asking yourself these questions:

1. Which design programs should I be using?
2. Is the document colour mode set to CMYK?
3. Are your bleeds set up correctly?

I will also hi-light some tips on how to save your design in all the right file formats.

Meeting these basic requirements will save you a lot of time, and help you avoid technical difficulties when it comes to printing. Let’s fill in the details.

Requirements a to always consider but are not limited to:

• budget
• branding and style
• the selected printing company
• the selected printing materials, including inks and papers

It’s best to try to figure these from the start, especially which printing company you are using. Many printing companies have different specifications, and it’s important to research those and adjust your design to them accordingly.

Printing companies like Print Express Online have business card templates available to download from their website, which make it easy to design to their specifications. Ideally, you should be using those templates to design your business card from the beginning. 

Just don’t jump the gun and spend 12  hours designing a super-fancy, gold-plated, cut-out business card printed on plastic. Your best bet is to start with a basic 2-sided, colour business card printed on paper.

1. Which design programs should I be using?

You can design a business card in either a vector or raster program, but you've got to make sure that you’re doing it right. Whichever you prefer, many printing companies like Print Express Online have templates in both vector and raster programs available to download off their website.

• If you use a vector program, use Adobe InDesign or Adobe Illustrator.
• If you use a raster program, use Adobe Photoshop, making sure that you set the document resolution to  300 DPI.

2. Is my document colour mode set to CMYK?

The CMYK colour mode is for designs that are going to be printed, like your business cards. It is the default color setting for many of the recommended softwares, but you should ALWAYS double-check and make sure that your document colour mode is set to CMYK, not RGB.

Here’s how to check that your document colour mode is in CMYK in three different programs. These steps will take you to the colors panel:

• Photoshop: Image > Mode > CMYK Colour
• Illustrator: File > Document Colour Mode > CMYK Colour
• InDesign: Window > Colour (When the panel pops up, click on the options button in this panel, and make sure that the CMYK option is checked.)

3. Are your bleeds set up correctly?

For this example, we’re going to assume that you want to print your cards at printexpress.co.za. We've downloaded a business card template in Adobe Illustrator from Print Express's website, including a separate file for each side of the card.

The template explains the essential components of a business card file pretty well, but here’s a little more detail:

• The safe area is the area inside which you should keep all text and graphics that you don’t want to be cut off by the printing machine.
• The trim is the line along which the card is going to be cut by the machine.
• The bleed area is the area that is going to be cut off by the machine, but make sure that this area is filled with image and colour so that there is no white space left on your card when it is trimmed.

Did you save your design in the right file format?

Business card designers should always provide you with these formats:

• AI, ID, CDW or PSD
• EPS
• JPG
• PDF
• TIFF

If your graphic designer provides you with all these files then you should not have to ask them for anything else. Though a PDF file is usually sufficient for printing, I’ve also included TIFF as a file format to deliver, because some printers will ask for TIFF files.

This business card check list might seem like a lot of work, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run. Following it every time will fulfil the minimum requirements for business card files, and will result in files that are easily adapted to different printing companies and specifications.

Have another business card tip? Add it in the comments!