Design a Business Card using Photoshop Element

April 3, 2013 7:53 am Published by Leave your thoughts

businesscard

Making a simple, yet professional, business card doesn’t have to be a chore. It can take as little or as much time as you want. The purpose of this tutorial is to get you set up and in the right direction. And to show you that you do not have to be a Photoshop expert to make a nice, effective, business card.

1. Concept

Designing a business card on your own can be a challenge. There are a lot of things to consider.What will I use for images? What kind of fonts should I use? Who is my target audience? But before you get bogged down by all these questions, first we need to think about what we’re going to design. If you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for, do some research. What style of business card speaks to you? Think about what draws your customers to you and what kind of design will fit in seamlessly with your company image. Once you have a good idea about how you want the card to look, make a quick sketch of layout and image ideas. Once you’re done… it’s time to look for images.

2. Finding images

This gets a little tricky because you have to make sure the image you are using is not copyrighted. I recommend going to a trusted stock photo site. You still need to read the fine print before downloading or purchasing any images. Many free image sites require you to credit the site/author which does not look professional on a business card and many have copy restrictions. Make sure you read the site FAQ and any license information on the image before download. You can also choose not to use any images at all or draw one yourself.

3. Setting up your document

I’m using Photoshop Elements but really you could use any graphic program for this.

Open a blank document. File – New- Blank document

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A standard business card is 3.5 x 2 inches but I’m going to add .25 to every side as a bleed. I will set my width to 3.75 and my height to 2.25. I’ve also set my DPI to 300.

Once that is done hit OK.

Next, make sure your Rulers are on. If they aren’t, go to View-Rulers

We have our bleed already added to the document size but we need to be able to see our boundary lines.

In order to do that, click on the top ruler then drag it to the .25 mark. We’re going to do this for every side.

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This marks the actual 3.5 x 2 inches.

Now we need our cut line. This will be the line the printer will cut the cards on. To do this, drag the guides to the 1/8th mark.

Your document should like this:
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4. Begin Designing Your Card

Now that you have your concept, your image, and your document set up… you’re ready to begin designing your card.

A few things to keep in mind:

Make sure that your background image and your image extend to the edge of the document. This is to ensure that, when printed, the graphics will print to the edge of the product.

Keep your font readable. The fancier the font, the harder it will be to read.

My finale product:

businesscard

It was done by using a gradient in the background and finding a really good image.\

5. Save your document

Go to File-Save as- and choose jpeg from the drop down menu. Name your card and save.

Now you’re ready to get your card printed.

If you would like, you could upload your finished product to custom business cards and we’ll print it for you!

 

 

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This post was written by Progressive Printing Team

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